Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
fl new theory
of the leisure class
D E I HacCHHHELL
UJith a Heuj Foreiuord by Lucy R. Lippard
and a Heui Epilogue by the Author
O D ti) 31
m e tu l i b r a r y
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.. * 0050379016*
London, England
First California Paperback Printing 1999
Foreword copyright © 1999 by Lucy Lippard
Epilogue copyright 1999 by Dean MacCannell
Copyright © 1976 by Schocken Books Inc.
Material quoted from The New York Times and New York
Times Magazine copyright © 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972 by
the New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.
MacCannell, Dean.
The tourist: a new theory of the leisure class /
by Dean MacCannell.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York: Schocken Books,
1976.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-21892-2 (alk. paper)
1. Travelers. 2. Tourist trade. 3. Civilization,
modem. 4. Leisure. I. Title.
G155.A1M17 1999
338.4'791—dc21 98-38832
CIP
Acknowledgments xxvii
C om m odity and Sy m b ol 21
T h e W ork E x p erien ce 34
T o u rist D istric ts SO
Parks 80
T rad ition 82
H istory 84
5/Staged Authenticity 91
F ro n t, Back and R eality 92
C onclusion 105
M arkers 110
“T ru th ” M arkers 136
C onclusion 158
Applications 161
M ethods 173
T h e o ry 179
Epilogue 189
Notes 205
Index 221
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FOREWORD: LOOKING ON
ence out of difference” and climbing once again to that “still higher
ground of the old arrogant Western Ego that wants to see it all,
know it all, and take it all in.” On the optimistic side, he offers the
tantalizing possibility that tourism might contribute to the simulta
neous “deconstruction o f the attraction” and “reconstruction of
authentic otherness . . . as having an intelligence that is not our
intelligence.”
Thanks to The Tourist, those of us who had never thought about
our own travel practices, who had never considered the tourism
phenomenon, those o f us who have toured in an aura of mindless
enthusiasm or disillusion, praising this “discovery,” deriding that
beaten track without examining our own complicity . . . suddenly all
of us, even those who stay at home, have had to see ourselves as
players in this game that is changing the world.
Lucy R. Lippard
Introduction to the 1989 Edition
I f the founding claim of postmodernism is taken seriously, the
social arrangements I described more than a dozen years ago
passed out of existence almost exactly coincident with the origi
nal publication date of The Tourist. I wanted the book to serve as
a new kind o f ethnographic report on modem society, as a demon
stration that ethnography could be redirected away from prim i
tive and peasant societies, that it could come home. My approach
was to undertake a study o f tourists, to follow and observe them
with seriousness and respect, as a method of gaining access to the
process by which modernity, modernization, modern culture was
establishing its empire on a global basis. N ow , according to the
postmodern thesis, the edge of sociocultural change is no longer
the province o f modernity. Lyotard, Jam eson, K roker, and others
whose thought deserves respect com bine a kind o f M arxism
(without the labor theory o f value) w ith a recently developed,
powerful method of esthetic analysis, deconstruction, for pur
poses of describing current cultural phenomena. T h e ir approach
teaches us that the rise o f m ultinational corporations and the
corresponding global extension o f Am erican econom ic and m ili
tary domination fundamentally altered the substance and behav
ior of classic capitalism. Esthetic production, which in an earlier
time might have provided a critique of capitalism , has become
fully integral with commodity production. T h is integration dis
rupts the dialectic of surface and depth on which we could once
depend for alteration of social and econom ic relations from
within; the sim mering or explosion o f revolutionary sentiments
from the depths of capitalist civilization (modernity) are fully
neutralized (postmodernity). Now we have all surface and no
depth, the death o f the critical, revolutionary, and free subject,
and the end of “history.”
Postmodernism is not to be dismissed as mere leisure of the
theory class. Photorealist painting, the valorization of surfaces in
art, architecture, and human relationships, pastiche and the recy
cling of cultural elements, etc., are fully em pirical and suscepti
ble to ethnographic investigation concerning their cultural
significance. Much o f the material that would eventually be
analyzed under the heading “ postmodern” already put in an
appearance in The Tourist. So if I could accept the critical theory
of postmodernism, I would want to identify The Tourist with its
prestige and smooth over the embarrassment of republishing a
book about something that no longer exists. Perhaps “the tour
ist” was really an early postmodern figure, alienated but seeking
fulfillm ent in his own alienation— nomadic, placeless, a kind of
subjectivity without spirit, a “dead subject.” T h ere is even tex
tual evidence for this: for example, the term “postindustrial
m odernity,” is used throughout the book. T h e sights and specta
cles of tourism were specifically described as a concrete form of
the internationalization of culture and as a system of esthetic
surfaces w hich are comprehensive and coercive. Even the figure
of the “revolutionary” has a cameo role on the first pages o f The
Tourist and then, as if on cue, disappears.
B ut the interpretation I gave these matters is not the same as
that which would eventually be provided by theorists o f the
postmodern condition. T h e difference in treatm ent has to do
with the validity of claims on behalf of the postmodern for its
extraordinary historical privilege and ethnographic salience.1 In
1. F or exam ple, F red ric Jam eson (p. 68) has com mented: “T h is mes
m erizing new aesthetic mode itself emerged as an elaborated symptom
o f the w aning o f historicity, of our lived possibility o f experiencing
history in some active way” (“Postmodernism, or T h e C ultural Logic of
Late Can,talism , The New L eft Review vol. 146, Ju ly-A u gu st, 1984, pp.
53-93). And U m berto Eco: “T here is a constant in the average Am erican
im agination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and elabo-
the context of current research and scholarship I would want to
be held accountable in ethnographic terms. T h ere are grounds
(about which more later) for theoretical disagreement. But I
would hope that any student who enters this arena will hold to
the principle of holism on a methodological level even as we
recognize that our subject m atter is not classically “bounded”;
that observation be detailed and based on living with the people
we w rite about, even if we don’t identify with them; that descrip
tions are perspicacious from the double perspective o f objective
specialists (e.g., social scientists, critics) and those whose lives are
touched by the conditions described, in this case, the tourists and
especially those the tourists come to see; and finally that concern
for observation of real people in real situations always precede
the development o f socio-cultural theory.
On the basis o f my own observations, and my reading of the
work of other students who have done research on tourism and
modernity, I am not prepared to argue that the accumulation of
materials called “postm odern” constitute the end of history, or
even a distinct historical epoch, nor can I say that I believe they
touch humanity in its tenderest parts. T h ey are more a repres
sion and denial necessary to the dirty work o f modernity so it can
continue to elaborate its forms while seeming to have passed out
o f existence or to have changed into something “new” and “dif
ferent.” I could not personally undertake the task of explaining
to an assembly line worker that industrial society “no longer
exists.” And w hile there are strong historical grounds for the
claim that the U nited States’ invasion of Grenada was devised in
the first place to serve as a kind of “text,” I would not undertake
to explain V ietnam as a “textual effect,” certainly not to someone
who was there.2
Much o f our current critical and political project appears to me
as a kind of unrealized mourning in which all of life has become
rated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of im m ortality as dupli
cation. It dominates the relation w ith the self, with the past, not infre
quently w ith the present, always with H istory . . .” (Travels in
Hyperreality [San D iego: H arcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986] p. 6).
2. See, for example, Jam eson’s discussion of M ichael H err’s Dispatches,
in “Postm odernism ,” p. 84.
reorganized around something that “died,” bestowing upon the
purportedly dead subject, dead epoch, dead values, etc.— honors,
privilege, and prestige denied them in life. W ith all the goodwill
in the world, current criticism is a self-conflicted exercise. T h ere
is no way to prevent pronouncem ents concerning “the death of
the subject” or the “crisis of historicity” from being readable as
expressions of an anticreative ethos, nostalgia for the bourgeois
or Cartesian subject, and a E urocentric past— the very institu
tions and concepts which the critics seek to deconstruct. T h e
rhetoric o f postmodernity virtually assures that all thought, not
merely “critical” thought, will be compromised in this way. Ron
ald Reagan rose to power on the Berkeley Free Speech Move
ment. H e was ostensibly opposed to the movement, but now it
is clear that no one listened more attentively to what the student
revolutionaries were actually saying, and no one would eventu
ally benefit more, even directly, from the rhetorical power of
their statements. Recall that he called it “T h e Reagan Revolu
tion” and that it was the students, not he, who first enunciated
the demand to “get bureaucracy off our backs.” Reagan’s recy
cling of 1960s politics is a postmodern gesture p a r excellence, as if
the recycling o f any form, even one which was originally antipa
thetic to current political goals, is automatically superior to the
creation of something new. H is politics were not technically of
the political right. They established the “cen ter” as a place of
political indifference by means of a violent trivialization of politi
cal and historical distinction. T h is absolute com m itm ent to the
process o f recycling political positions, no longer as positions but
as pure form, is a kind of death at the cultural level. It makes the
idea o f the “end of history,” if not quite a self-fulfilling prophesy,
at least a self-propelling fallacy.
A main procedure employed by tourism precisely parallels
the founding theoretical gesture of postmodernism: an arbi
trary line is drawn across the path of history— postmodernists
jump across the line in one direction, into the historyless void,
and tourists jump in the other, to “where the action was.”3 T h e
9. A recent special issue o f The Annals o f Tourism Research (vol. 16, 1989),
on the “Sem iotics o f T ou rism ,” is devoted almost entirely to ethno
graphic and historical accounts o f the effects o f repositioning the periph
ery.
always really male: e.g., “the president” is categorically gender-
less but always male— “the surgeon,” “the m illionaire,” etc. T h e
cultural forces at work here are so strong that even if the surgeon
happens to be biologically female she is still culturally a “he.”
“T h e tourist” may be the most frivolous of these putatively gen-
derless but masculine figures, so beside the point of gender poli
tics that I doubt feminists would think it w orthw hile to attack
him. Y et we can note a certain realization on the current fron
tiers of tourism: e.g., the sex tours of Bangkok. Masculism and
modernism are still making effective use of nameless, faceless,
“genderless,” seemingly “m inor” armies: W hat is an expedition
ary force without guns? Tourists. A com bination of feminist
theory and tourism research could yield needed descriptions of
the self-destructive elements found at the end of a hegemonic
drive.
Certain other events and experiences which might have modi
fied my thinking on tourism did not. My travels in the course of
gathering observations for the book were restricted to an area of
the earth extending along the Pacific coast of N orth America:
from Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada to Baja California,
then across the United States and W estern and Eastern Europe
to Istanbul. After I finished The Tourist, I was able to visit Mexico,
A frica, and Asia. N othing that I found in my subsequent travels
has caused me to want to change the overall thesis of the book,
though I admit to having been surprised to discover villages in
N igeria and India where (although I was there) there is no insti
tutionalized tourism.
D. MacC.
Lafayette, California
February, 1989
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I think a book of this kind would not have been written without the
assistance of a specialist in one of the “cultural sciences.” I have
discussed every aspect o f this work with my wife, Dr. Juliet Flower
MacCannell, an active literary scholar, and she has given freely of her
admirable insight.
Barbara Sirota, who teaches English in the Humanities Program
at M IT , read the first draft and gave me an interpretation that helped
pave the way for the second.
I have benefited from many conversations with Robert J . Max
well, and with Ruth C. Young who shares my interest in the relation
ship of tourism and modern society. It was Paul de Man who first
suggested to me the need for a study of modernity.
Professors Jack V . Buerkle, Lewis Coser, Erving Goffman, A.
Paul Hare, John A. Hostetler, Everett C. Hughes, John M. Roberts,
and Frank W. Young have given me both encouragement and assis
tance of a specific kind with this project.
More thanks are owed Frank Young who first taught me how to
analyze complex social structures. Young’s own research is so scienti
fically clear-cut and sound that I hesitate to acknowledge his influence
on this work which is often speculative and probably raises more
questions than it settles.
Many friends and colleagues, many more than are mentioned here
by name, have brought me observations from their own travels. I have
been helped most in this regard by my mother, Dr. Frances M.
MacCannell, who taught me never to pass an historical marker with
out reading it. Pat Arnold made some excellent video tapes of sight
seers for me which I was able to use to check some of my ideas.
/
xxviii Acknowledgments
D. MacC.
September 1975
The Tourist
It is intellectually chic nowadays to deride tourists. An influential
theoretician of modem leisure, Daniel J . Boorstin, approvingly
quotes a nineteenth-century writer at length:
The cities of Italy [are] now deluged with droves of these creatures, for
they never separate, and you see them forty in number pouring along a
street with their director— now in front, now at the rear, circling round
them like a sheep dog:—and really the process is as like herding as may
be. I have already met three flocks, and anything so uncouth I never
saw before, the men, mostly elderly, dreary, sad-looking; the women,
somewhat younger, travel-tossed but intensely lively, wide-awake and
facetious.2
Some tourist attractions are not merely minimal, they are sub-
minimal or generally regarded as “pseudo” or “tacky”:
A 13-story Fiberglas statue o f Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of a new
Biblical amusement park called Holyland, being built near Mobile,
Ala. T h e park . . . will include visits to heaven and hell, Noah’s ark,
gladiator fights, the Tower o f Babel and the belly o f the whale tem
porarily occupied by Jonah. All for just $6 a ticket.6
AT the beginning o f the industrial age, Karl Marx, basing his ideas on
those of Hegel, wrote a theory accurate enough for several revolution
ary governments to use as a guide for building new societies. T o my
knowledge, there is no other sociological thesis which has been so
applied, and (by this standard of applicability) Marx’s work remains a
high point in sociological macrotheory construction.1
T he industrial epoch is ending, however, and Marx’s thought,
once at the vanguard, has become separated from the revolution.
European intellectuals (Sartre and especially Merleau-Ponty) saw in
Stalinization the first signs of the petrifaction of Marxism. The cur
rent generation has its own evidence of the phenomenon, including
Pravda's denunciation of the student-worker revolution in Paris in
May, 1968.
Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the recent failure of Marx
ist thought to articulate its content to the revolution is found in the
classrooms o f community colleges in New Jersey, Kansas, and
California. The Marxist perspective is being taught and studied sym
pathetically in working-class colleges across the U .S.A . with no
evident impact— as yet, anyway.2 It might prove fruitful to reopen
the books in search for an alternate path to the end of the industrial
age.
Hegel was the first modem thinker to take as his proper task the
incorporation into a single system of all thought, including the history
of each department of thought which, before him, appeared to be
17
discrete and isolated. Hegel treated pure science, fine art, history,
morality and politics as but differentiations of consciousness, and he
explicates consciousness so understood. In his Phenomenology o f M ind,3
Hegel grasps intellectual movements and entire epochs of culture
history as fragments of a totality. He set as his goal the discovery
of the ordering principles interior to the totality which gives rise to
seemingly independent ideas and particular historical periods.
Hegel held the natural, material world to be the realm of the
contingent and accidental. Order, in his view, is a product of con
sciousness. For example, his analysis of the State made of it the
visible, tangible spirit of a people, a reflex o f consciousness trans
cended only by art, philosophy, and religion. These go beyond the
State because they are partial reflections, not of the spirit of a histori
cally existent people, but of absolute spirit.
Karl Marx began his analysis of social structure not with the
individual but with an examination of the relations between man and
his productions. The Holy Family is only a reflex o f the family of
man, but understanding the fullness of the meaning of the human
situation requires going beyond the determination of a parallelism
between the (religious) ideal and the empirical world. It is necessary,
he says, to demystify the relationship between the material and the
nonmaterial, between quantity and quality. The family of man sub
ordinates itself to an image of itself which it creates and then holds to
be superior to itself. Marx (unlike Durkheim) read this as a sign of an
agonizing alienation resting on a schism in social structure itself. This
alienation of man from his creations culminates, according to Marx, in
capitalist production.
Marx foresaw the flowering of the importance of commodities under
industrial capitalism. He saw in the manufacture, exchange and
distribution of commodities a novel structure. T h e relationship
between things— their relative values, arrangement into hierarchies,
their progressive development in production processes— is modeled
on social relations in human society. Moreover, Marx found that the
relations between the men involved in commodity production were
developing in an opposing direction and becoming rational and objec
tified, or thinglike. The double movement of social relations onto a
material base and of the material base into ideology is the main legacy
of industrial society and Marx’s understanding of it.
MARX'S SEMIOTIC
Note that markers may take many different forms: guidebooks, in
formational tablets, slide shows, travelogues, souvenir ma.tchbooks,
etc. Note also that no naturalistic definition of the sight is possible.
Well-marked sights that attract tourists include such items as moun
tain ranges, Napoleon’s hat, moon rocks, Grant’s tomb, even entire
nation-states. The attractions are often indistinguishable from their
less famous relatives. If they were not marked, it would be impossible
for a layman to distinguish, on the basis o f appearance alone, between
moon rocks brought back by astronauts and pebbles picked up at
Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. But one is a sight
and the other a souvenir, a kind of marker. Similarly, hippies are
tourists and, at home in the Haight Ashbury, they are also sights that
tourists come to see, or at least they used to be.
The distinguishing characteristic of those things that are collec
tively thought to be “true sights” is suggested by a second look at the
moon rock example. Souvenirs are collected by individuals, by tourists,
while sights are “collected” by entire societies. T h e entire U .S.A . is
behind the gathering of moon rocks, or at least it is supposed to be,
and hippies are a reflection of our collective affluence and decadence.
The origin of the attraction in the collective consciousness is not
always so obvious as it is when a society dramatizes its values and
capabilities by sending its representatives out into the solar system.
Nevertheless, the collective determination of “true sights” is clear cut.
T h e tourist has no difficulty deciding the sights he ought to see. His
only problem is getting around to all o f them. Even under conditions
where there is no end of things to see, some mysterious institutional
force operates on the totality in advance of the arrival of tourists,
separating out the specific sights which are the attractions. In the
Louvre, for example, the attraction is the Mona Lisa. The rest is
undifferentiated art in the abstract. Moderns somehow know what
the important attractions are, even in remote places. This miracle of
consensus that transcends national boundaries rests on an elaborate
set o f institutional mechanisms, a twofold process of sight sacralization
that is met with a corresponding ritual attitude on the part of tourists.
Setting aside for the moment Marxist concerns for “use value,” I
want to suggest that society does not produce art: artists do. Society,
for its part, can only produce the importance, “reality” or “original
ity” of a work o f art by piling up representations of it alongside.
Benjamin believed that the reproductions of the work of art are
produced because the work has a socially based “aura” about it, the
“aura” being a residue of its origins in a primordial ritual. He should
have reversed his terms. The work becomes “authentic” only after the
first copy of it is produced. The reproductions are the aura, and the
ritual, far from being a point of origin, derives from the relationship
between the original object and its socially constructed importance. I
would argue that this is the structure of the attraction in modern
society, including the artistic attractions, and the reason the Grand
Canyon has a touristic “aura” about it even though it did not originate
in ritual.
Paris is not only the political metropolis of France, but also the center of
the artistic, scientific, commercial, and industrial life o f the nation.
Almost every branch of French industry is represented here, from the
fine-art handicrafts to the construction of powerful machinery. . . .
T h e central quarters of the city are remarkably bustling and ani
mated, but owing to the ample breadth of the new streets and
boulevards and the fact that many of them are paved with asphalt or
wood, Paris is a far less noisy place than many other large cities. Its
comparative tranquility, however, is often rudely interrupted by the
discordant cries of the itinerant hawkers of wares of every kind, such as
“old clothes” men, the vendors of various kinds of comestibles, the
crockery-menders, the “fontaniers” (who clean and repair filters, etc.),
the dog barbers, and newspaper-sellers. As a rule, however, they are
clean and tidy in their dress, polite in manner, self-respecting, and
devoid of the squalor and ruffianism which too often characterise their
class.9
TOURIST DISTRICTS
jtJT^PHANESt
fr/ir.TU l ib r a r y
this problem, but apparently he is adjusting to the presence of
tourists:
For a time, in fact, St. Boniface became an attraction for tourists and
white liberals from the suburbs. Father Groppi recalled that he had
sometimes been critical of the whites who overflowed the Sunday
masses at St. Boniface and then returned to their suburban homes.
“But now I can understand their problems,” he said.“T hey come
from conservative parishes and were tired of their parish organizations,
the Holy Name Society and that sort of nonsense.”12
Palekh boxes are formed from papier-mache and molded in the desired
shape on a wood form. A single artist makes the box, coats it with layers
of black lacquer, paints his miniature picture, adds final coats o f clear
lacquer and signs his name and the date. Each box represents two to
three days’ work. Some of Palekh’s 150 artists work at home. . . . I
watched Constantine Bilayev, an artist in his 50’s, paint a fairytale
scene he might have been doing for his grandchildren. It illustrated the
story o f a wicked old woman with a daughter she favored and a
stepdaughter she hated. She sent the stepdaughter into the woods to
gather firewood, hoping harm would befall the Girl. Instead, the
stepdaughter triumphed over every adversity.17
In addition to this cute side of occupational sightseeing, there is a
heavy, modem workaday aspect. In the same community with the
box makers, there are real young ladies triumphing over adversity
while serving as tourist attractions. The report continues:
But the main attraction of this city o f 400,000 people is the Ivanovo
Textile Factory, an industrial enormity that produces some 25,000,000
yards o f wool cloth a year. T h e factory represents an investment of $5 5
million. The factory’s machinery makes an ear-shattering din. Ranks of
machines take the raw wool and convert it into coarse thread, and
successive ranks of devices extrude the thread into ever-finer filaments.
T he weaving machines clang in unison like a brigade on the march
— Raz, Dva, Raz, Dva, Raz, Dva as an unseen Russian sergeant would
countitout. The 7,500 workers are mostly young and mostly female. A
bulletin board exhorts them to greater production in honor o f the Lenin
centenary.
Paris was selected for a case study of work displays because it was
a focal point for tourism at the time. It had a fully elaborated touristic
complex which was not yet repetitious or encrusted with commer
cialized attractions which only imprecisely reflect the elementary
structures of tourism. There have been periods in the development of
modem London, San Francisco, or Rome which would serve as well
for such a case study, but none would serve better, and none is better
documented.
From the standpoint of industrialization and modernization,
Paris, 1900 is a far from arbitrary designation for a study o f the origins
o f modem values. It is the capital of the nation that was, at that time,
first among nations on most indicators of modernity. France had
already had her revolutions. In so doing, she provided Marx with his
model for the revolutions that would follow. Walter Benjamin sug
gested that nineteenth-century Paris was the origin of modernity
itself: his working title o f his magnum opus, unfinished at the time of his
unfortunate death, was “Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth
Century.”6 In addition to attracting Marx, who was heading the other
direction, Paris was an essential stop in the Grand Tours of British
gentlemen, and was beginning to attract the new middle class of
Britons and Americans in large numbers. T he special reasons for
travel (to visit a friend, fair, ceremony, or religious shrine, to do
business or research, to shop for a special article) were giving way to
the modern idea that no reason need be given to visit Paris except to
see the city itself and its sights. The guidebooks of the time indicate
that Paris was completely equipped with good temporary accomoda
tions for tourists of limited means. A guidebook to the Paris Interna
tional Exhibition of 1900 begins:
Most o f the visitors to Paris in 1900 will go, not only to see the
exhibition, but to see Paris as well. For many the trip across the
Channel will be the event of a lifetime. T he publisher of the present
guide has attempted to furnish those who wish to profit as much as
possible by their visit, and enjoy it as fully as may be, the means of
doing so easily and cheaply. T he present Guide does not primarily
appeal to the person who stays regardless of expense at the fashionable
hotels, dines at the Grand Cafés, and shops at the Rue de la Paix,
although every possible information concerning that life will also be
found. . . . In “Exhibition Paris” will be found hints how to see Paris
cheaply, how and where to live well and reasonably, how to save
money.
For documentation I have selected two guides, the one just quoted
from above, the Anglo-American Practical Guide to Exhibition Paris: 1900
(London: William Heinemann), and Karl Baedeker’s justly famous
Paris and Environs With Routes From London to Paris: Handbook fo r
Travelers (Leipsic, Karl Baedeker, Publisher, 1900).* Baedeker’s
*References in this chapter to the Anglo-American guide will be in the text
as “AA PG, p. 00,” and the Baedeker guide as “B , p. 00.”
guide contains a detailed description of every work display mentioned
in the other guidebooks and traveler’s accounts I have read.7 The
question of Baedeker’s comprehensiveness, then, is academic. If a
sight is not mentioned in any guides, it is unmarked, it is not an
attraction from the standpoint o f institutionalized tourism, and it is
not likely to be visited much by tourists.
My use o f the Baedeker guide did present another kind of diffi
culty, however. It retains, from its original use by the Grand
Tourists, a distinctive upper-crustiness.8 In the “Practical” guide,
this is not the case: as already indicated in the quote above, it exhibits a
penny-pinching middle-class stance as it immediately directs its read
ers away from the shops on the rue de la Paix. Baedeker, on the other
hand, lists only the hotels and restaurants of “the highest class” and
those of “almost equal rank” (B , p. 3), and for shopping Baedeker sends
his reader straight to the rue de la Paix:
No matter how much they might have needed it, the users o f the
Baedeker guides would have been insulted by advice on how to cut
corners, and Baedeker was careful not to give it.
The pronounced bias of Baedeker on the matter o f selecting
support facilities for tourists (hotels, restaurants, gift shops, etc.) did
not influence his selection o f sights. T h e “Practical” middle-class
guide, which insists that “Paris is essentially a city of pleasure and
amusements” (AA PG , p. v.), is biased in terms of selection of sights and
omits mention of the slaughterhouse, for example. Baedeker calmly
describes the sewers, the morgue, the slaughterhouse in their proper
places in his suggested afternoon and morning walking tours (which
cover almost the entire city) alongside his dry descriptions of foun
tains, paintings and monuments. He seems to be motivated only by a
commitment, and sometimes a grudging one, to an ideal of responsi
ble guide writing that requires descriptions of everything open to
tourists. T he result does not conform to the standards established by
academic anthropology for ethnography, but it is still the best ethnog
raphy of modern cities so far available.
Baedeker’s class bias did, it will soon be seen, influence th e way he
described work displays. I have used the “Practical” guide, with its
less complete and less elevated viewpoint, to correct, wherever possi
ble, Baedeker’s disdain for everyday, especially workaday affairs.9
Again, the guide assumes that the reader knows French and
perceives its job not as one of translating French into English, but of
Noise into French. Also, implicit in the description is the reminder
that high status once meant occupying a social position slightly above
the need to make money. Baedeker looks down on men making
money. T he tone of the description of the stock exchange in the
Practical Guide is quite different:
The M int: In moving from the stock exchange to the mint, the
tourist crosses another line dividing nonmanual from manual labor,
and enters the world of machinery. Baedeker evidendy found the
sound of machines making money more tolerable than the sound of
men so engaged:
The Ateliers, with their steam-engines, furnaces and machinery, are
well worth visiting. . . . The machines invented by M. Thonnelier
are highly ingenious, sixty pieces of money being struck by them each
minute, while the whole of them in operation at once are capable of
coining no fewer than two million francs per day. (B , p .248 .)
It is probable that the Grand Tourists believed that this was the
proper way to make money, just as today some people think it propter
to delegate complex problem-solving to computers and dangerous
warfare to air force. Secreted within these desires is an effort to
bracket the presence of human workers, a pretense that T he Job can
be done without human intervention. This is even now our “postin
dustrial” dream of an automatic society that runs without human
effort and allows mankind to enjoy perpetual childhood.
As I have suggested, the hope for a “postindustrial” society is, in
fact, only a touristic way of looking at work. It was apparently
especially difficult to routinize touristic visitation to work places
where manual labor was performed for several reasons, including the
embarrassment of appearing before “work people” whose life situa
tion was less fortunate than that of the early tourists. The absence of
descriptions of workers at the mint is equivalent to the nice middle-
class practice of averting the eyes from someone in a social predica
ment.
The factory of the Gobelin is still the first of its kind in the world. The
quantity of the works it has produced and the quantity of workers who
were trained there is unbelievable. As a matter of fact France owes the
progress o f the arts and manufactures to this establishment.12
Men and women came, and some looked eagerly in and pressed their
faces against the bars; others glanced carelessly at the body and turned
away with a disappointed look— people, I thought, who live upon
strong excitements and who attend the exhibitions of the Morgue
regularly, just as other people go to see theatrical spectacles every
night. Where one of these looked in and passed on, I could not help
thinking: “Now this don’t afford you any satisfaction— a party with his
head shot off is what you need.”14
In the Place du Châtelet is one of the usual entrances to the vast network
of sewers (Egouts) by which Paris is undermined. They are generally
shown to the public on the second and fourth Wednesday of each
month in the summer. . . . T he visit, in which ladies need have no
hesitation in taking part, lasts about 1 hr., and ends at the Place de la
Madeleine. Visitors are conveyed partly on comfortable electric cars,
partly in boats, so that no fatigue is involved. (B , p.64.)
These shy and pallid gentlemen who work in the bowels o f the city
are developing, it seems, a skill once monopolized by writers and
motion picture makers. They exhibit a professional responsibility to
contribute to the universal drama of work. As they select out (or
fabricate) details of their jobs which they feel will be o f interest to
tourists (the danger, the injections) or have intrinsic appeal (the
sword), they create one more bridge between men and make their
small contribution to the solidarity of the modem world thereby.
These shy and pallid gentlemen who work in the bowels of the city
are developing, it seems, a skill once monopolized by writers and
motion picture makers. They exhibit a professional responsibility to
contribute to the universal drama of work. As they select out (or
fabricate) details of their jobs which they feel will be of interest to
tourists (the danger, the injections) or have intrinsic appeal (the
sword), they create one more bridge between men and make their
small contribution to the solidarity of the modem world thereby.
PARKS
Oh Aunt! what can I say that shall give you the least inkling of that
wonderful sight! We were silenced, awed by the scene. Alfred, poor
fellow! squeezed my hand . . . I returned the pressure; such scenes are
so overpowering . . . As for Alfred’s friend Plenderleath, he would do
nothing but suck on the end of his cane, and ejaculate “By Gad!” at
intervals.5
TRADITION
“It seems wise to introduce cultural behavior and values that diverge
considerably from those o f the monocultural learner, not in terms that
stress traditional differences, but rather in terms of common prob
lems.” This principle is most directly realized when the re-interpre
tation attempts to link the foreign reality [in the exhibit] with the
visitors’ own occupational or hobby interests. T he approach may
succeed in creating a feeling o f appreciation o f and admiration for the
ways in which some primitive peoples have solved difficult environ
mental and technical problems with minimal means.8
HISTORY
In public works projects in the Italian capital scholars hover near the
laborers most o f the time. This is the reason— though not the only
one— why the Roman subway is taking so long to build. . . . Pasquale
Cutitta, an immigrant from Naples who has for the last six years been
ripping open Rome’s surface in various construction jobs, says with a
grin: “I f I see any old stones, I cut right through with the jackhammer.
Isn’t the Colosseum enough of a ruin for Rome?”10
Even when modern society gets its historical facts and relation
ships right (if this is technically feasible), the appearance of the past
through the vehicle of the tourist attraction may be loaded in favor of
the present which is not shown as an extension of the past but as a
replacement for it. An advertisement for the Bureau of Travel De
velopment of Pennsylvania reads: “ GO W H ERE T H E A CTIO N WAS.
. . . Come tour history in Pennsylvania.”15
à
JL
Staged Authenticity
Finally the men moved beyond the doorway. And We Danced— All of
us with all of us. In circles and lines and holding hands and arm in arm,
clapping and jumping— a group of whole people. I remember so many
other dances, couples, men and women, sitting watching, not even
talking. How could I have consented to that hateful, possessive, jealous
pairing? So much energy and life, and sensuality, we women have so
rarely and ineffectively expressed. But we did, on Saturday. T he
women in the band were above performing and beyond competition,
playing and singing together and with we [sic] who were dancing. And
We Danced— expressing for and with each other.3
An earlier, one-sided version o f this connection between truth,
intimacy and sharing the life behind the scenes is found in descrip
tions of the ethnographic method of data collection. Margaret Mead
has written:
The anthropologist not only records the consumption of sago in the
native diet, but eats at least enough to know how heavily it lies upon the
stomach; not only records verbally and by photographs the tight clasp
of the baby’s hands around the neck, but also carries the baby and
experiences the constriction o f the windpipe; hurries or lags on the way
to a ceremony; kneels half-blinded by incense while the spirits of the
ancestors speak, or the gods refuse to appear. T he anthropologist enters
the setting and he observes. . . .
Not all travelers are concerned about seeing behind the scenes in
the places they visit. On occasion, and for some visitors, back regions
are obtrusive. Arthur Young, when he visited France in 1887 to make
observations for his comparative study of agriculture, also observed
the following:
Mops, brooms, and scrubbing brushes are not in the catalogue o f the
necessaries of a French inn. Bells there are none; th efille must always be
bawled for; and when she appears, is neither neat, well dressed, nor
handsome. T he kitchen is black with smoke; the master commonly the
cook, and the less you see of the cooking the more likely you are to have
a stomach to your dinner. The mistress rarely classes civility or atten
tion to her guests among the requisites of her trade. We are so unaccus
tomed in England to live in our bedchambers that it is at first awkward
in France to find that people live nowhere else. Here I find that
everybody, let his rank be what it may, lives in his bed-chamber.6
There are vulgar ways of expressing this liberal sentiment, the desire
“to get off the beaten path” and “in with the natives.” An advertise
ment for an airline reads:
Some tourists do in fact make incursions into the life of the society
they visit, or are at least allowed actually to peek into one of its
back regions. In 1963, the manager of the Student Center at the
University of California at Berkeley would occasionally invite visitors
to the building to join him on his periodic inspection tours. For the
visitor, this was a chance to see its kitchens, the place behind the
pin-setting machines in the bowling alley, the giant fans on the roof,
and so forth, but he was probably not a typical building manager.
This kind of hospitality is the rule rather than the exception in the
areas of the world that have been civilized the longest, a factor in the
popularity of these areas with Anglo-Americans. A respondent of
mine told me she was invited by a cloth merchant in the Damascus
bazaar to visit his silk factory. She answered “yes,” whereupon he
threw open a door behind his counter exposing a little dark room
where two men in their underwear sat on the floor on either side of a
hand loom passing a shuttle back and forth between them. “It takes a
year to weave a bolt o f silk like that,” the owner explained as he closed
the door. This kind of happening, an experience in the everyday sense
of that term, often occurs by accident. A lady who is a relative of
mine, and another lady friend of hers, walked too far into the Cana
dian Rockies near Banff and found themselves with too much travel
ing back to town to do in the daytime that was left to do it in. They
were rescued by the crew of a freight train and what they remember
most from their experience was being allowed to ride with the en
gineer in the cab ol his locomotive. A young American couple told me
o f being unable to find a hotel room in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. While
they were discussing their plight on the sidewalk, an old woman
approached them and led them by a circuitous route to a small
apartment where they rented a blackmarket room, displacing the
family of workers who slept on a couch behind a blanket hung as a
curtain in the living room.
Certain individuals are prone to the kind of accident that leads to
these experiences because they seek out situations in which this type
of thing is most likely to occur. A report from the Caribbean suggests
that a taste for action of this type can be cultivated:
“But tourists never take the mail boats,” said the hotel manager. That
clinched the matter. T he next afternoon, I jumped from the dock at
Potter’s Cay in downtown Nassau to the rusted deck of the Deborah
K ., swinging idly at her spring lines. . . . [The writer describes island
hopping on the mail boat and ends his account with this observation.]
The next day, while aloft in a Bahamas Airways plane, I spotted the
Deborah K. chugging along in the sound toward Green Turtle Cay.
She is no craft for the queasy of stomach and has a minimum of the
amenities that most people find indispensable, but she and her sister
mail boats offer a wonderfully inexpensive way to see life in the
Bahamas— life as the natives live it, not the' tourists.®
CONCLUSION
]
6
A Semiotic of Attraction
MARKERS
Usually, the first contact a sightseer has with a sight is not the
sight itself but with some representation thereof. The proliferation of
touristic representations was apparently quite widespread even be
fore the recent information explosion. Charles Dickens, in what
appears to be hyperbole, makes what is, in truth, a factual observa
tion: “There is, probably, not a famous picture or statue in all Italy,
but could easily be buried under a mountain of printed paper devoted
to dissertations on it.”1 Modifying everyday usage somewhat, I have
adapted the term marker to mean information about a specific sight.
The information given by a sight marker often amounts to no more
than the name of the sight, or its picture, or a plan or map of it.
T he conventional meaning of “marker” in touristic contexts tends
to be restricted to information that is attached to, or posted alongside
of, the sight. A plaque reading “George Washington, the First Presi
dent of the United States, Slept H ere,” is an example. My use of the
term extends it to cover any information about a sight, including that
found in travel books, museum guides, stories told by persons who
have visited it, art history texts and lectures, “dissertations” and so
forth. This extension is forced, in part, by the easy portability of
information. Tourists carry descriptive brochures to and from the
sights they visit. Some steal plaques and carry them off as trophies.
The official National Monument sign, “George Washington Slept
H ere,” then, will be termed a marker whether it is located over a bed
in a room at M t. Vernon or in a boy’s room at an Ivy League college
fraternity house. Where it is necessary to distinguish between infor
mation found at its sight and information that is separated from its
sight, I will use the terms on-sight marker and off-sight marker.
While extending the conventional meaning “marker” in this way,
to include both on- and off-sight markers, I want to limit its use in
another way. In common use, “marker” often refers to both infor
mation and the vehicle for the information (to the stone as well as to the
inscription on it, in the case of grave “markers”), but here it refers only
to the information or the inscription. The distinction I want to
preserve here is a common one at the time when a stone or plaque is
selected, or when a new one is set in place. But it seems to erode with
time. So, for example, the nice separation between plaque and in
scription, made by the reporter who filed the following item, is not
always so evident as he makes it:
This picture is about thirty feet long and ten or twelve high, I should
think, and the figures are at least life-size. It is one of the largest
paintings in Europe. The colors are dimmed with age; the counte
nances are scaled and marred, and nearly all expression is gone from
them; the hair is a dead blur upon the wall, and there is no life in the
eyes. Only the attitudes are certain.3
One result of sight involvement is disappointment. Mark Twain also
expresses some marker involvement, with quite a different result:
I recognized the old picture in a moment— the Saviour with bowed
head seated at the center of a long, rough table with scattering fruits and
dishes upon it, and six disciples on either side in their long robes,
talking to each other— the picture from which all engravings and all
copies have been made for three centuries. Perhaps no living man has
ever known an attempt to paint the Lord’s Supper differently. . . .
There were a dozen easels in the room, and as many artists transferring
the great picture to their canvases. Fifty proofs of steel engravings and
lithographs were scattered around, too. And as usual, I could not help
noticing how superior the copies were to the original, that is, to my
inexperienced eye. Whenever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a
Michelangelo, a Carracci, or a da Vinci . . . you find artists copying
them, and the copies are always the handsomest.4
Mark Twain means to be ironic, but ironic humor does not succeed
unless it exposes some truth. T he truth is that marker involvement
can prevent a tourist’s realizing that the sight he sees may not be worth
his seeing it. Mark Twain is trying to combat a tendency on the part of
some sightseers to transfer the “beauty” of the calendar version of The
Last Supper to the original, but his is a losing battle.
Children, more than adults, have a capacity for being at once
sight-involved and marker-involved. Some are quick to point out that
a specific sight is hardly worth seeing but the information associated
with it makes a visit worthwhile anyway:
New York (AP)— Less than an ounce of moon rock went on display at
the American Museum o f National History, and 42,195 people, the
largest one-day crowd in the museum’s history, turned out to see it. “It
looks like a piece of something you could pick up in Central Park,” one
13 year-old boy said. “But it’s cool that it’s from the moon.”5
Kunkle cabin site. In 1848 Benjamin Kunkle and his family became the
first permanent settlers o f Guthrie County. Mr. Kunkle raised the first
hogs in the county. The marker is attached to a large elm tree in the
Myron Godwin farmyard.
D aleCity. . . . about 4 miles west o f Dale City on the north side of the
road is Glacier Ridge. T h e Wisconsin Glacier ended here, leaving rich
gravel deposits for road building.
Realizing I was seeing the very spot where mercenery [sic] thoughts
were submerged under a noble vision at that 1870 campfire, I felt my
spine tingle. A few moments later, in a plain glass case in this little
museum, I saw a facsimile copy of The Yellowstone Act. I read these
quietly momentous words: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assem
bled, T h at the tract o f land in the Territories o f Montana and
Wyoming. . . .” I swallowed, and squared my shoulders.7
Georg Simmel, who was apparently not much concerned about lit
ter bugge ry and other forms of man’s rape of nature, once suggested
that the interest value of archaeological ruins can be traced to the way
they reveal a contest between nature and culture, and a proof that the
cultural object (the ruin) can resist the ravages of nature. T o this I
would add that the ruin is emblematic of all tourist attractions which
are subject to physical and informational deterioration.
Its markers notwithstanding, moon dust can fail to attract as moon
rock attracts, and even though “watching a car crusher can be an
exciting interlude for a tourist,” an advertisement in a Wilmington
newspaper apparently provides insufficient information, or informa
tion of the wrong kind, so only a journalist follows its lead. Neverthe
less, it must be noted that all the attractions figuring in this section,
the Wyoming ice deposits, the Last Supper, the “Bonnie and Clyde
Shootout Area,” etc., have markers, generate some marker involve
ment, and attract at least a few sightseers— as do even the empty
birdcages at the Washington, D .C . zoo. The boy’s comment on the
moon rock (“it’s cool”) reminds us that there are some all-purpose
markers available for the sightseers to add to existing ones, or to
supply in the case o f an unexpected attraction, when other markers
are lacking.
A serious art critic might protest that to turn paintings into pic
tures is to deform them, but such protests are directed at real acts of
real viewers (called “naive”) and it is with these latter that the human
scientist is necessarily concerned.
B* D*
M A RKERS S IG H T S
First, the real street sign displaces the street as the object of
touristic recognition, then the charm displaces the street sign as a
sight. Only the inscription on the charm, the words “Rue de Rivoli,”
and the actual street have singular status in this set of relationships,
the former as marker, the latter as sight. T h e street sign and the charm
are at once both markers and sights. And this is what makes a charm
charming (or a totem totemic).
This is the latest step in Vermont’s effort to preserve one o f its major
attractions— its natural scenic beauty— by ending billboard blight.
The state-owned-and-operated sign system has already been installed.
Signs are grouped in clusters never more frequent than five or six miles
along the road, nor closer than five miles to a built-up area.
People watching: Just as the great lighted signs at Las Vegas can be
converted into sights, it is possible to transform the tourists them
selves into attractions. This is not, as yet, a widespread phenomenon.
Occurrences of people-watching are clustered at specific locations:
the Boardwalk at Atlantic City where the municipality has con
structed public alcoves filled with benches facing the walk; Telegraph
Avenue in Berkeley; the Spanish Steps in Rome; the late Haight
Ashbury and North Beach in San Francisco; the “Boul’ Mich’ ” in the
Latin Quarter in Paris; Dam Rak in Amsterdam and Trafalgar Square
in London. These areas are not usually filled with local residents but
with students, visitors and travelers, a fact which renders the attrac
tion of people watching, in these little capitals of people watching, not
that of people in general but of fellow aliens. Mark Twain provided an
old example from the Paris Expo of 1868 (cited above), which is a case
of sightseeing where the sight seen is a sightseer. The sight, its marker
and its seer are the same, or, if they are not exactly the same, two
tourists can take turns being all three. This is the most economical
kind of sightseeing from the standpoint of sight presentation and the
cash and energy outlay of the viewer. It is to be expected, therefore,
that its adherents are mainly recruited from economically dependent
classes: the aged and infirm and students. It does not necessarily
follow, however, that the behavior of the students who gather at Dam
Square in Amsterdam in the summer is little distinguishable from that
exhibited by an outdoors gathering o f old folks.20 Nevertheless, this
appears to be the case. T h e routines are few: dozing in the sun; quiet
conversation interrupted by long silent periods; a following with the
head and sometimes upper body of almost anything that is moving— a
scrap of paper blown by the wind perhaps; a slow-motion greeting of
an acquaintance without conversational follow-up. T h e students,
who need not fear that the gesture can be read as “symptomatic,” rest
their heads on their arms more; the old folks seem to smile more.
Excepting these differences, the summer population occupying the
bricks around the monument in Dam Square is interchangeable with
that occupying the green benches along Central Avenue in the retire
ment community of St. Petersburg, Florida, as far as its public
behavior is concerned. Unlike the middle-aged tourist, who tends to
define the urban outdoors as a tangle of corridors between monu
ments and museums, the old and young at times define it as a kind of
big T V room wherein they are spectator and image alike.
or
P IC T O R IA L IM A GE
or
[Actual
Tower
—» Symbol
Tower
of
J
—> Paris
S IG H T M A RKER
The Ethnomethodology
of Sightseers
"TRUTH" MARKERS
The movement from marker to marker that ends with the tourist’s
being in the presence o f the sight is not a simple adding up of
information. Any new piece of information may contradict the others
while claiming for itself the status of the truth. This also happens on
an interpersonal level in areas of social life policed by gossip, in
nuendo and slander. But the social organization of the truth is not
exactly the same on this interpersonal level as it is in the realm of
tourism. When the method detaches itself from interpersonal rela
tions, it becomes far more difficult to check out competing claims for
the truth, and far less important to do so as the difference between
truth and nontruth becomes inconsequential. The following item
from a Paris guide may serve as illustration:
In olden days the site now occupied by the Louvre was covered by a
forest swarming with wolves. In order to lessen the number of these
savage beasts a hunting-lodge was built in the forest, and was called the
Louverie, hence the name Louvre. This is the romantic derivation of
the word, but the more probable though prosaic derivation is from the
Saxon leowar or low er, meaning fortified camp.1
Actually [this is the truth marker] the Bell was not manufactured
properly at the factory where it was made in England.
Don’t bother. Everyone thinks it’s the University but the Sorbonne
itself is just a dormitory. There is no real university in Paris. It’s
scattered all over.
It is clear from the examples that a touristic truth marker need not
have any truth value from a scientific or a historical perspective.
Truth emerges from a system of binary oppositions to information
that is designated as nontruth. In the original illustration leowar
(meaning a fortified camp) was opposed to Louverie (wolf lodge) as the
true derivation of the name Louvre. Consider the possibilities. A
truth marker can be made by opposing good information to bad
(leowar is correct and Louverie is incorrect just as the guide says); by
opposing bad information to bad information (leowar and Louverie are
both incorrect); and by opposing bad information to good information
(Louverie was correct all along and it is leowar that is incorrect).
Some of these oppositions can be resolved to the satisfaction of the
tourists in the act o f sightseeing itself, in their own final organization
of information and experience. Gross misrepresentation is subject to
ongoing collective correction. The results of this activity are not to be
denied. I have already indicated that I believe the consensus about the
structure of the modern world achieved through tourism and mass
leisure is the strongest and broadest consensus known to history.
Nevertheless, it is also worthwhile to examine the workings of this
consensus. Its strength seems to be based on the same principle as its
weakness: by refusing to distinguish between truth and nontruth, the
modem consciousness can expand freely, unfettered by formal con
siderations. At the same time, it is necessarily undermined by an
agonizing doubt.
Even the most careful efforts to arrive at the truth within the
context of touristic experience can have quite the opposite results. In
the following example, all the scientific virtues of logic, empirical
observation, contrast and comparison are applied, each operation
carrying the tourists further from the truth while increasing their
certainty that they are getting closer to it. Tw o English-speaking
young ladies in an art gallery in Zurich examine a painting by an
Italian artist named Pio Piso. They have several pieces of information
about the painting, but nothing written in a language they understand
perfectly.
The artist’s name was Pio Piso, but the Second Young Lady has
used some linguistic sophistication to transform it into the gallery’s
address:
“first floor
[PrimoViano] Gallery
Italian
Artist’s name —* Pio Piso
“first floor”
[Primero Piso] Address
Spanish
T h e local people at the resort have begun to set the record straight.
The same process by which touristic reality is constructed can be used
to dismantle reality. Now all that remains to be discovered is whether
the picture was taken in Greece or Tunisia, whether the resort it
advertises is Exmouth or Deal, and/or whether the two news items are
even related to the same incident.
SPURIOUS STRUCTURE
MACROSTRUCTURAL SPURIOUSNESS
The Prodigal has difficulty expressing why he left home and why
he returned. T h e conversation ends:
Younger Brother: T h e wild pomegranate is of a bitterness almost disgust
ing; I feel, nevertheless, that if I were thirsty enough, I would bite
into it.
Prodigal Son: O K ! Now I can tell you: it is this thirst in the desert I
sought.
Younger Brother: A thirst that only this unsweetened fruit can quench—
Prodigal Son: Not exactly; but I learned to love the thirst.
Younger Brother: Do you know where to pick this fruit?
Prodigal Son : It is in a little abandoned orchard that one can reach before
evening. No wall separates it from the desert any longer. A stream
used to flow there; a few half-ripe fruits used to hang from its
branches.
Younger Brother: What kind of fruits?
Prodigal Son: The same as in our garden, but wild.1
Today, Gide might have written: “the same as in our garden, but
authentic.”
I f the individual does not bring home images o f reality elsewhere,
modern television programming will supply a bland, generalized
stream of such imagery. But the dividing line between structure
genuine and spurious in modern society is not the same as the line that
divides micro- from macrostructure; that is, domestic life from the life
of the entire society, or the image on the television set from the
“reality” pictured there. It is possible for the individual to leave his
everyday world in search o f authentic experience only to find himself
surrounded once again by spurious elements such as would occur, for
example, in a trip to Disney World. Entire touristic communities and
regions are now built up from spurious elements. The news that is
transmitted worldwide is sometimes organized around touristic sym
bolism. There is a simple formula for this: “Here in the shadow o f the
Eiffel Tower, the peace talks began today in an atmosphere o f . . .”
Even the President of the United States lards his speeches with
references to the Statue of Liberty, the Great Beauty of the Land, the
Spirit of the People, etc. Even in the “ivory towers” of social science,
the selection of topics for study, crime, the environment, the com
munity, is based on the same underlying structure which generates
other forms o f touristic curiosity. The dialectics of authenticity lead
to a progressive development of spurious structure, ever further
removed from domestic life, as modern man is driven ever further in
his quest for authentic values and his true self.
Modern technology makes possible the reduction of monumental
attractions to the status of mere souvenirs, so the individual can feel
that no matter how hard he tries to overcome it, he remains trapped in
a spurious world:
N ew T o u r is t T ow n B u y s H is t o r i c S pa n
GENUINE STRUCTURE
Lake Buena Vista, Fla., (N Y T ).— Out o f the muck and matted tangle
of cypress and palmetto trees, the stately spires of Cinderella’s castle
spring into the Florida sky, waiting to welcome a story-book princess
and 10 million visitors a year. Walt Disney World, a monument in
gingerbread to the creator o f Mickey Mouse and a clutch of other
childhood favorites, is taking shape in the interior of Florida, 16 miles
southwest of Orlando. After eight years of planning, construction is
under way in the biggest non-government project in the world. . . .
The success of the Disney World will depend, however, on several
factors apart from the public enthusiasm already set in motion by the
popularity o f its counterpart outside Los Angeles, Disneyland. A main
one will be the health of the national economy. . . . A continuing
sluggish economy could effectively shut it off from its customers if
Americans are forced to curtail holiday travel. . . . But happy end
ings are a Disney trademark and backers of the $300 million develop
ment, scheduled for opening in October, are confident that the invest
ment will be hugely profitable for the parent company, Walt Disney
Productions and the state. Roy Disney, the 77-year-old board chair
man of Walt Disney Productions, estimated in an interview here last
week that the 37,500 acres o f land purchased five years ago as the site
for Disney World would now have a market value of $1 billion.7
CONCLUSION
On Theory, Methods
and Applications
APPLICATIONS
On Theory, Methods
and Applications
APPLICATIONS
Mayor Frank Fasi o f Honolulu has urged the legislature to enact a hotel
room tax, hoping to ease the tax burden of local residents. “We are fast
becoming peasants in paradise,” he said. The recent Rotary Interna
tional convention brought 15,000 Rotarians to Honolulu, each spend
ing from $50 to $90 a day. A group called the “Hawaii Residents
Council” mailed mimeographed pleas to Rotarians urging them not to
spend money here. “We are losing our shirts and souls to the soaring
cost of living and the excessive greed that tourism brings,” the leaflets
said. “There is little in Hawaii that you cannot buy for less in your
hometown.”7
Katmandu, Nepal (AP)— For the hippie set, there’s no high like getting
high in the high Himalayas. At a time when Laos has grown disen
chanted with the flower power folk and Thailand will not let them in
without a bath and a haircut, and Japan requires a bond o f $250 as proof
of financial stability, the tiny kingdom of Nepal looms as the last
stronghold o f hospitality for the great unwashed.12
Conclusion
Social structures developed for tourism have the capacity to ser
vice populations which are larger than the resident population, some
times quite a bit larger. The island of Majorca, which has a resident
population of 380,000, hosts more than two million tourists
annually.16 In 1967, the Soviet Union reported hosting 1.8 million
tourists while sending 1.5 million Russians abroad.17 When com
pared with Majorca, there is some room for development. Over 1.5
million tourists requested tickets to see the 1970 Passion Play at
Oberammergau.18 Swiss ski lifts can accomodate 260,000 riders every
hour.19 The Kennedy Space Center averaged 152,000 visitors a
month in 1969. On a busy day in the same year 33,000 visitors were
counted.20 In 1968, Yosemite hosted 1.1 million campers (overnight
visitors, not merely visitors passing through).21 The National Forests
in California registered 41 million visitors in 1968, according to the
National Forest Service.22 In 1969, 1.3 million tourists went to
Greece and stayed in 108,000 extra beds available to them there.23 A
radio news reporter claims: “Turnout for Expo ’70 (in Japan) is light.
257,000 visitors on the first day was below expectations. . .” These
figures reflect capacities to handle nonresident populations which
would exceed most communities’ and institutions’ needs if most
communities and institutions were developed for tourism. The fig
ures are also a sign that modern social structure, through the in
stitutionalization of tourism, is naturally adapting itself to the prob
lem of “overpopulation.”
METHODS
Redfield’s work is, more than any other that I know, a continuation and
a further development o f the urban versus primitive, folk, or rural
made by so many o f the precursors o f modem social science. . . .
There are, however, certain dificulties involved in carrying their work
[Redfield’s and Singer’s] further. One o f them is methodological.
Redfield’s The Little Community bears the subtitle “Viewpoints for the
Study of the Human W hole.” It is much easier, in practice, to study a
little community as a whole than to study a great civilization, with its
immense cities and its great systems o f technique, thought, institu
tions, and arts, as a whole. . . . I wa nt . . . to make clear the direction
of the wind I am stirring up. T h e Redfield and Singer enterprise is
moving in the direction in which we need to go; I only wish to say that
to get full benefit o f it will require ingenious, brilliant, and although I
hate the thought, massive attacks upon the problems of method which
are involved.25
PREHISTORY:
C u ltu re h is t o r y :
C erem o n y a n d r it u a l :
Co tta ge in d u s t r y a n d e c o n o m y :
C O O K IN G :
G A M E S:
One plays British Monopoly in pounds for Fleet Street & Marylebone
Station, instead of Park Place and Boardwalk.
CO SM O LO G Y:
The Shetlander, who shares 60 degrees latitude with the southern tip of
Greenland, with the northern half of Hudson Bay and with Helsinki,
Leningrad and vast stretches of Siberia, is accustomed to being seen in
an unusual light— that of the midnight sun.
Conclusion
It is necessary, in conclusion, to note that tourism is different
from ethnography, and perhaps this is the secret of its success,
because it is not conscious o f its aims. The tourist remains mystified as
to his true motives, his role in the construction o f modernity. He
thinks he is going out for his own enjoyment. We have always
reserved our finest mystification for the act o f dutifully paying respect
to society and its works. T h e ethnographer is not, or ought not be,
mystified as to his true motives or taken in by the grandeur of his
undertaking. He must simply set about the task of making the social
world more understandable than it was before he began to study it,
hopeful that his theory and methods will help him to accomplish this
task, knowledgeable that there are no guarantees that this will be the
result.
One is reminded of Auguste Comte’s idea of a sociology-religion
(with sociologist priests), the queen of the sciences, taking as its
domain all o f social life including the other fields of study that evolved
earlier. Sociologists are somewhat embarrassed by this grandiose
scheme and they tend to shy away from it. Sociology did not even try
to form itself according to Comte’s vision. Tourism did. O f course,
Comte assumed that the super-sociology he envisioned would be
rational as well as spiritual, clear-cut as well as comprehensive.
Tourism and the modern consciousness have only gropingly and
inexactly realized his program.
THEORY
The Future o f the Touristic: There are signs that the drive to ration
alize and commercialize sightseeing on a global base may be self-
defeating as every destination on the face of the earth increasingly re
sembles every other destination. T h e “anchor stores” on the Champs
Elysées in Paris are T h e Gap, T h e Wherehouse, McDonald’s, The
Disney Store, etc., the same as those found deployed near former
Red Square in Moscow. If women in the United States already try to
appear “Japanese,” if the Japanese have established vital communi
ties in America, if Tokyo Disneyland is only a copy of Disneyland in
California, why should any U.S. tourist want to go to Japan? When
every cultural object and every person is out of place, detached;
when the entire world is a homogeneous jumble of frozen frag
ments; when “home” is no different from any of the places visited on
a tourist’s itinerary; when every destination is a random cannibaliza
tion of styles of the past, a pastiche of tokens and reminders of do
mesticated “cultural otherness”; isn’t this the end of “the touristic?”
Probably not, for two reasons:
1. On the side of the new corporate subject, in a world that is
rigid and homogeneous, leaving home is the only way to mark it as
distinct from other places. T h e subjects of corporate capitalism
travel at great cost to remote destinations that are no different from
where they live and work in a kind of imbecilic literalization of “mo
bility.” They are condemned to traverse a homogeneous world just
in order to mark their home as a place of distinction. T h e more ho
mogeneous their world, the more frenetically they will have to
travel in it, to leave home and return, “fort-da, ” in order to seem to
have a home. Already this group of travelers has a language that is
adapted to its limbo of being perpetually up in the air. W hen they
discuss their travel experiences among themselves they make few or
no reference to local differences in character or culture. Rather, they
avidly discuss minor variations in the accommodations and the
modes of conveyance: “We rode in one of the new planes with indi
vidual television monitors at every seat”; “Robert de Niro was on
the same boat”; “the bathrooms in the Hilton were spotless”; did
you eat in that restaurant I recommended?”; etc.
2. On the side of the touristic which retains a trace of the hu
man, the world doesn’t look like this at all. Half of the world’s peo
ple today still practice subsistence agriculture and stay quite close to
their animals and fields. Also, paralleling and opposing the move
ments of tourists during the past twenty five years there has been a
rapid increase of movement of non-tourists from formerly remote
regions of the world to northern and western centers of wealth and
power: the African and Caribbean diasporas; the flight of peasant
refugees from Central America; the migrations of agricultural and
now high-tech “guest workers”; Southeast Asian “boat people”; etc.
Finally, on the matter of travel in a homogeneous world hypostasiz-
ing the concept of “home,” there is a counterpoint in the growing
numbers of homeless. Industrial tourism and corporate definitions
of existence that have been developed during the last twenty-five
years are not appropriate to the lives of the majority of the world’s
people.8
Does this mean that the majority o f the world’s people do not
stop and take notice of interesting objects and events, or attempt to
understand these things and share their understanding with others?
N ot at all. For them, the ubiquitous devices of the developed world
are objects of intense touristic curiosity. A Mexican family I know
loved its visit to Disneyland. But what they remember most vividly
is the orderly way Anglo tourists lined up for the various rides and
attractions. A student of mine, newly arrived from Eritrea, wrote a
brilliant and poetic paper about the vending machine, something
she had not seen before and now saw everywhere, something she in
terpreted as “standing in for” and replacing the human.9 T h e partic
ular way she noticed the vending machine gave substance to her
newly formed understanding of herself “as African,” something that
was unthinkable for her until she left Africa and met the vending
machine face-to-face. One o f her many examples was the coin-in-
the-slot shoe shine machine. These machines made her see how she
had taken for granted the human element in the trade relation be
fore her arrival in the United States, and how fragile that element is.
But her paper was not intended as a critique of commercialization
based on nostalgia for “authentic tradition.” It was an exuberant
noticing and effort to make meaning out of something that was for
her entirely new in the world.
There are countless similar touristic acts and experiences that
remain refractory to commercialization. This would include the
current global movement of “indigenous curation,” wherein local
people and artists collect traditional artifacts, label them and put
them on display in and for the community that produced them. N el
son Graburn has documented these activities among the Inuit peo
ples. He takes care to point out that often the initiative stems from
the passion of a single person who goes around the community col
lecting and preserving “old stuff” for display in a crude semi-public
place.10
M y maternal uncle, Elwood Meskimen, had a junk yard on the
central Oregon coast that he operated throughout his life on a strict
barter basis. His rationale for accepting an object in trade was never
anything other than its “interest value” and that he didn’t already
possess such an object. H e had assembled such things as depth
gauges from World War I submarines, a huge collection of hand
made tools including a working tractor built entirely from scrap, 50-
year-old motorcycle engines, repair manuals for radial piston air
plane engines, an evolutionary sequence of flint and iron welding
torch lighters and torch heads going back to the invention of the
welding torch. W hen he died, this “junk” was his only estate. T h e
things he had collected became available for sale for the first time,
and hundreds of people traveled from Alaska, Washington, Idaho,
and Mexico to look, touch and show their children, and to buy.11
T h e artist Ann Chamberlain, charged with the task of making a
photo documentary of a street in a traditional New York outer bor
ough neighborhood, spent Sufficient time (she maintains that it
should have been longer) in the place to get to know the residents
well enough to ask them to bring her their old photographs. She cu
rated an exhibition in the local junior high school gym. The materi
als in the exhibition had been previously secreted in hundreds of
separate boxes and albums, never before assembled as a totality. Be
low the display of the neighborhood archive Chamberlain placed
her own photographs of the people currently living there, the own
ers o f the collection.
T h ese are gestures which occur outside the commercial nexus
and fully within the spirit o f the restricted definition of the “touris
tic” that I am recommending here. And, o f course, it is only a small
bouquet of examples picked at random. T h ere are millions of paral
lel examples accessible for all to see.
On the side of the human, the most important thing happening
in tourism today is not the construction o f a new Sony Corporation
Entertainment Complex across the street from the Art Museum. It
is the way San Francisco, or London, or Chicago is being shown to a
new immigrant from Asia, Latin America or Africa, by someone
from her family or region who arrived earlier.12 It is also found in
the efforts o f middle class people who are not content to accept
commercialized entertainment as defining the limits of the tourist
experience. Anyone who tries to budge the grid o f human experi
ence slightly off its current numbingly predictable coordinates revi
talizes “the touristic.”13 Anyone can discover the grounds for new
desires in the abundant stuff that is overlooked by sightseers who
follow commercialized routes. Or, if it is correct that conventional
attractions are only there to hide and suppress the unconscious, any
one can find new grounds for excitement beneath and behind the
things that are currently officially noticed: the way in which the re
moval of Asian Americans from a neighborhood is marked by the
Asian roof-line of the bank, for example.
It is important to recall that most things that are now attractions
did not start out that way. In San Francisco, there was a time when
Mission Dolores was just a mission, when Fisherman’s W harf was
just a fisherman’s wharf, when Chinatown was just a neighborhood
settled by Chinese. W hat transformed these places into the center
pieces of the enormous tourist industry of the City of San Fran
cisco? In the beginning it was not hype. T h e key I have been sug
gesting is that the place became something more than a spatial
coordinate, something more than a spot of protected intimacy for
like-minded individuals. It became, in addition, the locus of a human
relationship between un-like-minded individuals, the locus of an ur
gent desire to share— an intimate connection between one stranger
and another, or one generation to another, through the local object.
It is the “you have got to see this,” or “taste this,” or “feel this” that
is the originary moment in the touristic relation, which is also the
basis for a certain land of human solidarity. And it is precisely this
moment that has become depersonalized and automated in com
mercialized attractions— the reason they are at once both powerful
and dead. But “the touristic” is always being displaced into new
things as cause, source and potential. All that is required is a simul
taneous caring and concern for another person and for an object
that is honored and shared but never fully possessed.
Dean MacCannell
San Francisco
August, 1998
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. Marx may not be completely alone in this. Some would argue that
Rousseau’s Social Contract and other political writings inspired the French
Revolution, and one finds in his Oeuvres Completes, vol. I ll (Paris: Gallimard,
1964), specific blueprints for the organization of two states: “Projet de Con
stitution pour la Corse,” pp. 90 1 -5 0 , and “Considérations sur le Gouverne
ment de Pologne et sur sa Réformation Projetée,” pp. 953—1041. Along these
lines it is worthwhile to recall that when Fidel Castro arrived victorious in
Havana, he carried in his jacket pocket not the Manifesto but the Social
Contract. ■
2. While I know this to be widespread from firsthand acquaintance with
teachers and students so inclined, I know of no study or analysis of it. It is my
own impression that the radicalization o f marginal colleges and universities in
the United States during the past decade results from the “dumping” of
P h .D .’s trained in the mainstream during the latter part of the 1960’s. As the
post-World War II “baby boom” crested through the colleges, there were
insufficient facilities and teachers for them. T h e response of the institutions
was disorganized, and after some initial build-up to meet the problem, as the
population levels began to stabilize, there was much discussion of “cutbacks,”
and of the “overproduction o f P h .D .’s.” Interestingly, there has been no
discussion o f using the new, broader manpower base to strengthen the
institutions. The new talent, in fact, is increasingly treated as a “problem,”
and the procedures used in the hiring and advancement of new P h .D .’s and
assistant professors during the early 1970’s often bordered on cruelty. Many
new academics are going to teach at the kind of college that had previously
made do with less-qualified teachers. It appears that a strengthening o f the
institutions on the periphery is occurring as a part of the same process that is
weakening the institutions in the mainstream, all without conscious planning,
and with an interesting twist: the experience o f being turned out o f the
mainstream has, in many instances, produced powerful revolutionary senti
ments in new academics all across the land, and these sentiments are, for the
first time, finding an audience among the “left-behinds.” The so-called
marginal colleges are becoming centers o f a new intellectual ferment with (so
far) unspecified potential and direction.
3. G . F. Hegel, The Phenomenology o f Mind, trans. J . B. Baillie (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1910, rev. ed., 1931).
4. Cited in Wilhelm Windelband, A History o f Philosophy, vol. 2 (New
York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 641.
5. For a discussion o f the ideology o f Boston-based Progressive Labo-
rites, see Barrie Thom e, “Resisting the Draft: An Ethnography of the Draft
Resistance Movement,” an unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, Brandeis Uni
versity, 1971.
6. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), p. 74.
7. Lake Park, Florida: Addco Industries, Inc., n.d.
8. Emile Durkheim, Tbe Elementary Forms o f the Religious Life, trans. J . W.
Swain (New York: Free Press, 1965), p. 264.
9. For a discussion of the relationship of social life to fictional accounts of
it, see Juliet Flower MacCannell, “Fiction and the Social Order "Diacritics 5,
no. 1 (1975), pp. 7-16.
10. The term “experience” is scattered in the writings on the avant-garde
of the human sciences. There is little systematic effort to define this term.
(Notable exceptions include Erving Goffman’s recent Frame Analysis: An Essay
on tbe Organization o f Experience [New York: Harper & Row, 1974] and R. D.
Laing’s popular The Politics o f Experience [New York: Ballantine, 1967].) In
current discourse, scientific and otherwise, one finds the assumption that
everyone knows and agrees about what “experience” means, even though this
assumption could not be further from the truth.
11. Ibid., p. 41.
12. H. Marshall McLuhan has argued, and gained much agreement, that
the media are entirely responsible for the construction o f cultural images.
This radical position probably accords the media too much primacy and
independence. See his popular Understanding Media: Tbe Extensions o f Man
(New York: M cGraw -H ill, 1964).
13. Howard Becker has published an article, “Art as Collective Action,”
American Sociological Review 39, no. 6 (December 1974), pp. 767-76, in which
he makes the point that many individuals cooperate to produce culture. He
does not treat art and other cultural productions as models for the organiza
tion of our modern society and experience. His sociology remains centered on
the individual even after the discussion o f “cooperation” and the like. Erving
Goffman has opened the door to understanding the structure of modern
society with his dramaturgical studies of modern life, but he arbitrarily
restricts his analysis to the individual and situational level. Goffman uses
cultural models (dramatic devices, social fictions, etiquette) as his tools— he
does not treat them as part of his subject matter. For example, in a somewhat
overstated disclaimer, Goffman writes: “I make no claim whatsoever to be
talking about the core matters o f sociology— social organization and struc
ture. . . . I personally hold society to be first in every way and any
individual’s current involvements to be second; this report deals only with
matters that are second.” Frame Analysis, p. 13.
14. See, for example, his Leçon Inaugurale published in English as The Scope
o f Anthropology, trans. S. O . Paul, and R. A. Paul (London: Cape, 1967).
15. It can be noted that electronically mediated experience is de-ritualized
to some degree. As compared to live experience, electronically mediated experi
ences separate the performers from the audience and the members o f the
audience from each other. Because the audience need not get itself “up” for
the experience, it can avoid taking a role in the experience, and if the media
lull their audience to sleep in this way, they cannot play an important part in
the emergence of modern civilization. There are signs that television is
retreating into a position fully subordinate to everyday life, a kind of self-
censuring “Muzak” background noise for domestic settings: the “talk shows”
only go so far as to bring the living room into the living room; the “soaps”
bring the kitchen into the kitchen.
16. Suggested by Virginia McCloskey, who attributes the remark on the
moon landing to Margaret Mead.
17. T h e philandering professor anti-hero in Alison Lurie’s novel, The War
Between the Tates (New York: Random House, 1974), tried to bridge the gap to
his graduate-student girlfriend in this way.
18. Reported to me by Barry Alpher, who has done linguistic fieldwork
among the Australians.
19. Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsdtz zur Wissenscbaftslebre. (Tubingen:
Mohr, 1922), p. 204. Cited in M. Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy o f Perception,
e d .J. M. Edie (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 205.
This passage also appears, translated somewhat differently, in W eber’s The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit o f Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York:
Scribner’s, 1958), p. 182.
20. Lewis Mumford, The Conduct o f Life (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1970), p. 209.
21. Edward Sapir, Culture, Language, and Personality, ed .D . G . Mandel-
baum (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1961), p. 92.
CHAPTER TW O
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
Aborigines: Australian, 31, 150; chur- Amusement park, 14, 57, 163, 170
inga, 42 Anderson, Raymond H ., 200n
Adams, Thomas R., 196n Antarctica: tourism in, 185-87
Adorno, Theodor, 22, 146 Anthropology, 10
Advertising, 22, 24, 36, 119, 125, 133, Appalachia: tourism in, 8, 40
135, 142, 143, 157, 158, 170 Applications: applied research, 161, 187
Aenas, 5 Archaeology, 119, 184. See also Ruins
Africa, 78, 166, 170, 171; North Africa, Arendt, Hannah, 47n, 60n
49 Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia,
Agriculture, 12, 96, 178 46
Aid: international, 8. See also Develop Around the World in Eighty Days, 26
ment Art: criticism, 18, 22, 31, 42, 47, 48, 69,
Alcatraz, 138 79, 120, 139, 143, 178,- 191n
Alexander the Great, 5 Art galleries. See Museums
Alienation, 2, 6, 11, 19, 32, 36, 55, 68, Artificiality, 8, 96, 103, 146
146, 147, 154, 160, 173 Asia: Southeast, 166, 171. See also Viet
Allen, Douglas A., 196n nam
Alpher, Barry, 192n Aspen, Colorado, 149
Amanas, 53 Assassination: of John F. Kennedy, 7
America, American. See North America; Assembly lines, 62, 163
United States of America Astronauts, 41, 115
American Express Company, 59, 163, Attractions: desacralization of, 169; fram
164 ing of, 44, 45; recognition of, 123;
Americanization, 164, 165 sacralization of, 39, 42-45, 169. See
American Society of Travel Agents, 200n also Religious attractions; Tourist at
Amish, 46, 167 tractions; and specific attractions by
Amsterdam, 54, 172 name
Amusement. 6, 34, 61, 76 Audience, 24, 27. See also Spectators
Aura: Benjamin’s theory of, 47, 48 Bourgeois idealists, 85, 86
Australia, 42, 192n Bozeman, Montana, 201n
Authenticity (and inauthenticity), 2, 3, Brancusi, C. : workshop of, as attraction,
14, 41, 44, 47, 48, 79, 83, 91-96, 80
9 8 -1 0 0 , 102, 10 4 -6 , 135, 137, Brown, Norman O ., 146
145-48, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157-60, Browne, Malcolm W., 185n
167, 169, 178-80; staged, 91-107 Buchalla, Carl, 200n
Burgelin, Olivier, 198n, 199n
Baedeker, Karl, 48, 49, 60-65, 67-71,
74-76, 79, 193n, 196n
Bahamas, 98, 177 California, 30, 137, 155, 157, 166
Baldwin of Constantinople, 45 Cameras, 23. See also Photography
Baltimore: burlesque houses in, 127 Canada, 87, 141, 142, 148
Bamum, P. T ., 119 Canadian Mounties: as attraction, 46, 141
Barrow Gang (Bonnie Parker and Clyde Canals, 54, 133
Barrow), 114, 116, 128 Cape H atteras Lighthouse, North
Barthes, Roland, 58, 158, 159, 193n, Carolina, 44
200n Cape Kennedy, Florida, 98. See also
Basques, 53, 158, 159 Manned Space Center
Battlefields: Gettysburg, 129; Normandy Capital, capitalism, 2, 12, 19-21, 33, 36,
Beach, 129: Valley Forge, 129, 130; 63, 65, 85-87, 111, 119, 120, 194n
Verdun, 129; Waterloo, 129; Watts, Capital (Marx), 191n
129 Car crusher: as attraction, 115, 116
Battleships, 13 Caribbean: tourism in, 98, 163, 183, 185
Beatles, 29, 30 Casablanca, 49
“Beautiful People,” 37, 184 Casbah, 50
Becker, Howard, 191n, 192n Casinos, 105, 127
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 45 Castle: as hotel, 167
Behavior: for tourists, 52 Castro, Fidel, 190n
Bell, Barbara, 202n Catton, William, Jr., 81, 115, 196n, 198n
Benjamin, Walter, 47, 60, 193n, 196n Cavan, Sherri, 177, 202n
Berger, Bennett, 180, 203n Cemetery, 129
Berkeley, California, 30; Telegraph Ave Central Intelligence Agency, 87
nue, 54, 130 Change: social and cultural, 27, 77, 85,
Berlin, 101 86, 92, 194n. See also Development;
Berlin Wall: tourists at, 7 Modernization
Berlitz language instruction, 201n Chapman, Irwin, 193n
Bermuda, 150 Charms: as modern totems, 124, 125
Beverly Hills, California, 50 Chaucer, 5
“ Big B oy” locomotive, Cheyenne, Chavez, Cesar, 28
Wyoming, 197n Chicago, 164
Billboard blight, 125-27. See also Pollu Chicanos, 9
tion China: Great Wall, 78, 146; Gate of
Birmingham, Alabama, 54 Heavenly Peace, Peking, 54; Red
Boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey, Guards, 148
54, 130 Chinatown: as tourist attraction, 46, 50,
Boorstin, Daniel J ., 9, 10, 103-7, 189n, 111, 170
198n Chomsky, Noam, 109
Boston: Backbay, 46; North End, 168 Christianity, 28, 49, 73
Churches, 36, 43, 51, 58, 77, 122 Cuba, 86
City, 3, 16, 45, 51, 147; inner, 8, 40, 77 Cuber, John F., 177, 202n
Class: leisure, 36, 37, 177; middle, 5, 7, Culture, 2, 3, 22, 25, 35, 58, 77, 78, 109,
13, 27, 52, 60, 61, 72, 74, 87, 148, 116, 142, 180; criticism, 47, 146,
170, 171, 178; struggle, 37; working, 147, 154, 178; genuine (and spuri
6, 7, 12, 70-73. See also Contradic ous), 35; industrial, 6; popular, 58,
tions; Proletariat; Revolution; 170, 180; totality, 25
Warfare; Workers Cypress Gardens, Florida, 44
Colossus of Rhodes, 153
Columbia River, 36 Dachau: extermination ovens as attrac
Columbus, Christopher, 5, 88, 89 tions, 7
Comics, 22, 23, 58 Daifuku, Hiroshi, 195n
Commodities, 7, 11, 19,21-23, 125, 157, D’Alembert, 195n
158 Damascus, 49, 97
Common sense, 118, 119, 157, 161 Dam Rak, Amsterdam, 130, 131
Communal living, 6, 18 Dance, 21, 32
Communism, 2, 111, 118 Danish Modern (style), 22
Community, 25, 32, 39, 40, 46, 48, 50, Davis, Fred, 177, 202n
56, 62, 77, 80, 83, 86, 152, 164, 166, Death, 57, 71, 72, 73
168, 169, 173, 177, 181 Democracy, 31, 49, 63
Computers: problem solving with, 65 Demonstrations: protest, 25, 30
Comte, Auguste, 179 Developing world, 6, 8. See also Moderni
Conflict, 11, 180 zation; Third World
Connecticut, 53 Development: economic, 8, 11, 27, 85,
Consciousness: class, 12, 27; collective, 87, 163, 177, 181. See also Change
26, 42, 87, 143; group and indi Diaspora, 5
vidual, 15, 18, 42, 49, 56, 66, 67, 69, Dickens, Charles, 110, 198n, 202n
73, 83, 86, 92, 133, 141, 158, 170, Diderot, 195n
182; modem, 2, 3, 8, 9, 34, 41, 63, Differentiation: of consciousness, 18;
68, 81, 139, 142, 160, 179, 183; na sexual, 11; social structural, 11-13,
tional, 30; radical, 12; revolutionary, 15, 16, 25-27, 40, 46, 48, 49, 51, 62,
12; touristic, 40, 48, 56, 67, 76, 84, 93, 132, 140, 141, 145, 147, 158,
101-3, 1 10, 135, 158. 5 « also Mind; 179-82
T ranscendence Disasters, 166
Consensus, 25, 139 Disneyland, Anaheim, California, 100,
Consumption: conspicuous, 11 148, 153, 154, 156, 167
Contradictions: internal, 86. See also Disney World, Orlando, Florida, 152,
Class; Revolution; Warfare 156, 157
Cook, Thomas, and Son, 163 Division of labor, 7, 16, 54, 69
Copenhagen, 99 Do-it-yourself, 6, 7
Costumes, 47, 52, 180 Double-take: analysis of tourists’, 123
Cowboys, 36, 46, 54, 131, 182 Drugs: recreational, 23, 27, 29
Craters of the Moon National Monu Durkheim, Emile, 2, 19, 22, 46, 47, 109,
ment, Idaho, 41 150, 180, 181, 193n, 194n
Crime, 3, 145, 152, 161, 166; muggings,
7, 40. See also Violence Easter Island, 184, 185
Criticism: of tourists, 10, 103, 162-68 Economy, 20, 57, 62, 162, 175; per
Cruise ships, 59, 148 capita income, 8; poverty, 40, 41;
Crusaders, 5 poverty line, 8
Education, 32, 58 Fiction, 23, 77, 93, 178, 191n
Egypt, 119 Folk-urban continuum, 183, 184
Eiffel Tower. See Paris Ford Motor Company, 6
Eikenbary, Herb, 162, 200n Francastel, P., 199n
Empire State Building. See New York France, 16, 48, 52,60,64, 69, 84, 96, 138,
City 150, 164, l?9n
England, 82, 96, 138, 142. See also Great Frankfurt School, 22
Britain Fraud, 120, 128
Enshrinement: of attractions, 45 Frese, H. H ., 196n
Esthetics: of tourist attractions, 20, 31, Freud, S., 146
32, 44, 62, 66, 67, 70, 80, 103, 109, Front: false, 94, 95, 102, 155
119, 120, 129, 169 Fun, 35, 55, 76
Ethnic groups, 3, 5, 11, 29, 30, 40, 41, 62,
151, 159, 173 Garfmkel, Harold, 4, 195n
Ethnography: of modernity, 1, 2, 4; Gide, André, 151, 152, 199n
theory and methods, 4, 10, 61, 95, Gift shops, 61, 170
145, 165, 173-75, 177, 178; West Gladiator fights, 14
ern, 5 Glicksman, Hal, 197n
Ethnology, 8 God, 10
Ethnomethodology, 135 Goffman, Erving, 4, 24, 39, 42, 43, 46,
Europe, 43, 59, 106, 112, 131, 148, 166, 92, 95, 101, 105, 174, 175, 179,
168, 182; Eastern, 22; Western, 11 191n,192n,193n,195n,197n,201n
Everyday life, 4, 15, 22, 25, 26, 34, 41, Go-go girls, 93, 111; music, 165
47, 49, 62, 76, 91, 93, 102, 105, 145, Gonzalez, Arturo, Jr., 203n
147, 152, 154, 158-60, 178, 192n Goode, George Brown, 195n
Existentialism, 15, 16; Christian, 16 Goodman, J ., 198n
Exmouth, England, 142, 143 Gordon, 1. H ., 197n
Experience, 4, 5, 10, 15, 17, 21-24, Gottlieb, David, 177, 202n
26-28, 31-34, 62, 66, 68, 81, 91, 94, Grana, César, 82, 196n
97-100, 102-6, 112, 122, 135-37, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona,
139, 142, 146, 148, 151, 154, 48, 149, 157, 182
157-60, 166, 171, 178, 182, 186, Grand Coulee Dam: as attraction, 6, 36,
191n, 192n; collective, 4, 74, 141, 46, 138
176; socio-cultural, 4, 23, 24, 28, 29, Grand Tour, 5, 60, 61, 65
77 Great Barrier Reef, Australia, 78
Exploitation, 28 Great Britain, 29, 60, 126. See also Eng
Expositions and World’s Fairs, 23, 25, 26, land
60, 122, 127, 130, 149, 153, 164 “Great” men, 85, 86
Greece, 153; ancient,47 .Seealso Colossus
Factories, 6, 19, 20, 35, 49, 54, 59, 69, 70, of Rhodes; Ruins
77,95, 119, 167, 182. See also Assem Greenland, 78
bly lines; Industry; Manufacture Group (in-group, out-group, sub-group),
Fairs. See Expositions 30, 31,40, 52,77, 80, 136, 173, 180,
Family, 19, 21, 22, 30, 58, 68, 82, 91, 182
136, 159, 167, 173 Guidebooks, 41, 48, 58, 60, 61, 63, 64,
Fargo, William G ., 163 70, 114, 122, 135, 157-, Le Guide Bleu,
Fashion, 21, 24, 29, 47, 71 58; Michelin Guide, 58; writing of,
Festivals, 29, 129, 165; rock music, 25, 29 169, 177
Fetish, 6, 20, 91 Gulliver, 5
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 18 Gutenberg, 45
Habermas, J ., 146 Industrial society, 5, 19, 31, 33, 35, 48,
Haiti, 20In 60, 62, 6 3 ,6 5 ,7 7 , 82, 142, 157, 173,
Hall, Edward T ., 177, 192n, 203n 174, 180, 182
Handicrafts, 48, 53, 54, 67, 69 Industry: age of, 17, 33, 57, 147; tourist,
Hatch, Alden, 194n, 200n 163
Havana, 190n Information, 41, 110-16, 118-23, 128,
Hawaii, 31, 150, 165, 166 132, 133, 135, 137-41, 143, 147, 148
Hayner, Norman S ., 202n Insight, 102, 105
Heaven: as tourist attraction, 14 Intellectuals, 22, 63, 102, 104, 105, 107,
Hegel, G. W. F ., 17, 18 147, 17n
Hell: as tourist attraction, 14 Interaction: face-to-face, 4, 24, 145, 174
Henri IV (King of France), 69 Intimacy, 6, 94, 95, 99, 106
Hershey, Pennsylvania, 167 Iowa, 113, 114
Hippies, 18, 41, 42, 53, 100, 102, 171, Iran, 9
172, 185; middle-class, 193n Ishi ("the last Wild Man in America”),
History: as tourist attractions, 18, 33, 44, 87, 88 .
51, 78, 83-89, 91, 114, 142, 161, Islands: fake, 153, 154
169, 175 Istanbul, 49, 105, 106, 200n
Hitchhiking, 148 Italy, 9, 87, 110
Hitt, Joe, 199n
Hoffman, Paul, 193n Japan, 16, 52, 150
Holidays, 21, 97, 170, 175, 183; Centen Jesus Christ, 14, 26, 30, 113
nials, 25, 26; Christmas, 22, 25; Joanne, Paul, 194n
Memorial Day, 53
Hollywood and V ine, Los Angeles, Katmandu, 171
California, 54 Keller, A., 197n
Holy Family, 18, 19, 22 Khrushchev, Nikita: as tourist, 154
Holy Land, 14, 43 Kinman, Judith, 195n
Hostetler, John, 167n Kissinger, Henry, 146
Houses: ante-bellum mansion, 46; Bas Kroeber, Wlfred, 87, 88
que, 159; Edwardian, 46; French, Kroeber, Theodora, 196n
52, 155; native, 14; peasant, 103 Kurz, Otto, 198n
Hughes, Everett C ., 174, 189n, 195n,
201n Labor, 6, 19, 20, 28, 36, 62,65, 70 .Seeabo
Hughes, Howard, 105 Industry; Work; Work dispiay;
Hugo, Victor, 75, 76 Workers
Labor unions, 28
Labov, William, 181, 203n
Identification, 79, 124 Laine, P. J ., 203n
Identity, 9, 13, 35, 148 Laing, R. D ., 146, 191n
Ideology, 3, 8, 13, 19, 85, 146, 160, 171 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 167. See
Image, 14, 15, 18, 19, 32, 33, 43, 49, 63, also Amish
67, 76, 117, 122, 131, 132, 137, Landmarks, 80, 81
141-43, 147, 149, 151, 152, 168, Language, 3, 12, 20, 21, 46, 63, 64, 109,
169, 176. See also Signs 117, 119, 140, 148, 166, 172, 176,
India, 78 177, 20In
Indians: American, 9, 46, 52, 58, 87, 88, Las Vegas, Nevada, 105, 127, 130
115, 141 Law, 20, 47, 49, 57, 63
Industrialization, 54, 57, 67, 69, 70, 82, Leaning Tower of Pisa, 148
84, 91, 100, 168, 169, 183, 187 Lefebvre, Henri, 165, 200n
Leisure, 5-7, 10-12, 28, 34, 36, 55, 57, Marx, Karl, 6, 11, 13, 17-22, 36, 37, 60,
58, 80; alienated, 57; conspicuous, 85, 111, 190n
103; modem mass, 3, 139; sociology Marxism, 31, 47, 146, 179; left-wing, 22;
of, 5 planning, 165
Lenin, V. I., 54, 85 Masks: African, 79
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 1, 2, 4, 9, 25, 46, Masterpieces, 12, 79, 80, 85, 113, 120; of
57, 58, 107, 109, 189n, 193n Leonardo Da V inci, 113; of
Lies, 16, 93, 102. See also Authenticity; Michelangelo, 113, 121; of Rem
Truth brandt, 120; of Vermeer, 120. See also
Life-style, 3, 6, 11, 22, 30-33,62, 65, 72', Paintings
96, 155 Mauss, Marcel, 156, 199n
Lincoln, Abraham, 89; birthplace of, 148 Mayflower, 142
Linguistics; discourse analysis, 145; lin Mead, Margaret, 95, 192n,hl97n
guistic analysis, 181 Meaning, 20, 63, 68, 112, 118, 119, 174,
Literacy, 7, 8 181. See also Semiotics; Signs
Little Mermaid, Copenhagen, 44, 146 Mechanical Bride, The, 58
Lofland, Lyn, 165, 200n Medium, 24, 191n, 192n
London, 50, 55, 59, 60, 111, 121, 126, Melendy, Royal L ., 177, 202n
153; Big Ben, 149; Blackfriars, 50; Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 17, 192n
Covent Gardens, 50; London Method, 4 ,h l0 , 74, 95, 125, 135, 161,
Bridge, 54, 153, 157; Piccadilly Cir 173, 174, 177, 193n;Guttman scales,
cus, 50; Regent Street, 150, 151; 181; participant observation, 102;
Soho, 50; Strand, 50; Trafalgar revolutionary praxis, 22. See also
Square, 130 Ethnography; Ethnology; Ethno-
Lottman, Herbert R., 198n methodology
Louis X IV (King of France), 69 Mexico, 165, 172
Love Story, 31 Miami Beach, Florida, 149
Lurie, Alison, 192n Middle Ages, 47
Middle Americans, 41
MacCannell, Juliet Flower, 191n, 199n Mind, 109. See also Consciousness
McCloskey, Virginia, 192n Mingo County, West Virginia, 40
McDonald, Jack, 200n Minoff, lies, 199n
McLuhan, Marshall, 58, 191n Minz, M ., 197n
MacQuoid, G ilbert, and Katherine, Les Miserables, 7 5
194n, 199n Mississippi River, 46, 88
Machines, 35, 48, 54, 62, 65-67, 70 Mobile, Alabama, 14
Man: modem, 1, 3, 4, 91, 154, 159 Moby Dick, 36
Manned Space Center, Cape Kennedy, Models: cultural, 23-28, 30-33, 41, 43,
Florida, 98, 99, 173 45, 60, 86, 105, 122, 145, 157, 177,
Manning, Peter, K ., 117 181, 182, 15In; theoretical, 3
Manufacture, 19, 20. See also Factories Modernity, 1-119, 12, 15, 11, 26, 30, 31,
MaoTse-tung, 22,85; and Long March, 5 35-37, 39, 46, 60, 63, 68, 77, 80,
Marcuse, Herbert, 20, 102, 146 82-84, 86, 87, 91, 135, 136, 141,
Markers, 41, 44, 45, 109-17, 119-33, 145-47, 156, 159, 160, 174, 178,
135-39, 142, 147, 149, 151, 158, 184, 187, 196n; universal drama of, 7
169, 170. See also Semiotics; Signs Modernization, 3, 11, 13, 27, 28, 60, 63,
Markets: as attractions, 50, 51, 164, 165, 78, 82, 83, 86, 87, 91, 107, 142, 143,
168 147, 159, 168, 170, 173, 177, 178,
Marsh, Susan, 198n 181—83 187
Mohr, Charles, 200n Neighborhoods, 46, 50, 51, 169
Molyneux, Maxine, 199n New England, 54
Mona Lisa, 42-45, 157 New Jersey, 53
Mont Blanc Tunnel, Switzerland, 54 New York City, 13, 14,49, 58, 100, 111,
Montreal, 168 113, 127, 150, 154; Broadway, 54;
Monuments, 39, 40, 58, 61, 70, 77, 84, Bronx, 14; Central Park, 13, 113,
88, 123, 131, 152; historical, 25, 44, 154; Coney Island, 148; Empire
47, 111, 118, 129, 153 State Building, 46, 51, 131; Gar
Moon: as tourist attraction, 187; landing ment District, 59; Grant’s Tomb,
on, 192n; rocks and dust from, 26, 41; Greenwich Village, 50, 53; Har
41, 42, 113, 115, 116, 119; space lem, 40; Lower East Side, 53; Man
launchings to, 25, 26, 101 hattan, 7, 43, 54, 115, 132; Stock
Moore, Elon H ., 202n Exchange, 50, 100; Tompkins
Morality, 16, 18, 24, 27, 31, 3 9 ^ 2 , 45, Square, 53
62, 94, 100, 102, 107 Niagara Falls, New York, 81, 149, 182,
Moscow, 85; Red Square, 54; Lenin’s 196n
Tomb, 85 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 28
Motion pictures, 22-24, 26, 28-30, 76, Nixon, Richard M ., 148, 156
114 Nolan, Patrick, 195n
Mountains: as attractions, 41, 97, 125, Nordheimer, Jon, 199n
137, 138, 150, 155, 168, 171; fake, Normalization, 72
153; Mount Rainier, 43, 125; Mount Norms, 12, 39, 55, 91, 177
Rushmore, 148 North America, 11, 46. See also America;
Mumford, Lewis, 34, 192n United States
Murdock, George P., 174 North Pole: as tourist attraction, 186
Museumization, 8, 196n Nostalgia, 3, 63
Museums, 6, 31, 39, 70, 77-80, 83, 84,
87, 88, 99, 110, 113, 115, 120, 121, Obelisks: Egyptian, 13, 111, 154
129, 131, 143, 152, 157, 164, 170, Occupation, 6, 46, 53, 54, 62, 72, 195n
178; collections of, 78, 79, 80, 84, Odysseus, 5
195n-96n “Old Faithful” (geyser), Yellowstone Na
Music, 21, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 129, tional Park, Wyoming, 13, 126
182; rock and roll, 29, 30, 147 “Old Ironsides" (U.S.S. Constitution), 13
Mystification, 93, 94, 102, 103, 178 Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy, 146
Mythologies, 58 One-EyedJacks, 30
Mythology: of work, 57 Oregon: efforts to discourage tourism,
Myths, 4, 43, 58, 107, 181 165, 166
Original, 26, 47, 179
Namath, Joe, 30 Otherness, 5, 84, 135
Napoleon Bonaparte: hat of, 41; horses Outsiders, 9, 40, 49, 63, 92, 93, 98-101,
of, 112; writing desk of, 79 105, 141
Nassau, Bahamas, 98
National Forests: visits to, 173 Pacific Northwest, 43
Nations: modem, 8, 25 Paintings, 61, 70, 113, 120. See also Mas
Nation-state, 7, 16, 18, 41 terpieces
Naturalism, 3, 8, 41, 45, 67, 100, 132, Palekh boxes, 53
159, 163 Parades, 23, 25, 88
Nature: as tourist attraction, 77, 78, Paradise: as a tourist attraction, 165, 183,
80-84, 86, 91, 116, 119, 187 184
Pollution, 40, 126. See also Billboard
Paris, 1, 2, 9, 13, 17, 30, 43, 48, 50, 51, blight
55, 57-61, 63, 64, 66, 75, 76, 79, 80, Ponte Vecchio, Florence, 54
83, 111, 121, 124, 127, 128, 132, Pornography, 23, 27
137, 139, 149, 159, 169, 177; Bois de Post-industrial society, 5, 7, 34, 36, 65,
Boulogne, 128; “ Boul1 M ich’ ” 182
(Boulevard S t. M ichel), 130; Potemkin, 26
Champs Elysées, 54, 122; Eiffel Power, 34, 35
Tower, 43, 122, 132, 133, 149, 152; Prado, 80
government printing office, 57, 66, Pravda, 17
67, 70; les Halles, 51; Latin Quarter, Press, 22
50, 130; Louvre, 42-44, 80, 121-23, Priests, 27, 51, 179
137, 139; mint, 57, 65, 70; Mont Primitives: 8, 41; cultures, 2, 5, 25, 103;
martre, 50; Montparnasse, 50; mor societies, 49, 58, 83, 91, 174, 176
gue, 57, 61, 7 1 -7 3 ; Musée de Production(s): cultural, 6, 17, 19-21, 24,
l’Homme, 69; Notre Dame, 43, 122; 33, 36, 91, 191n; industrial, 20, 28,
Pigalle, 50; rue de la Paix, 60, 61; rue 62; influence of, 24
de Rivoli, 54, 61, 121, 124, Sainte Progressive Laborites, 18, 190n
Chapelle, 45; sewers, 55, 57, 61, 75, Proletariat, 22, 36, 72, 85, 86. See also
76; slaughterhouse, 57, 58, 61, 73, Class Workers
74; Sorbonne, 138; stock exchange, “Pseudo-events,” 103, 104
57, 64,65; supreme court, 57, 63,64; Psychoanalysis, 24, 173, 174
tapestry works (les Gobelins), 57, Pynchon, Thomas, 194n
68, 69; tobacco factory, 57, 58, 69, Pyramids, Egypt, 6, 149
71, 74
Parks, 39, 44, 77, 81, 84, 88. Seealso indi Reality, 3, 23, 47, 50, 54, 91-96, 99, 102,
vidual National Parks by name 104-6, 118, 135, 141-43, 145-48,
Patriotism, 15, 133 151, 152, 155, 158, 160, 164, 180
Paulson, Joan, 195n Recreation, 32, 44, 57, 80, 85, 142, 157,
Pearson, E ., 197n 168
Peirce, Charles S ., 109, 117 Redfield, Robert, 174, 184
Pennsylvania, 53, 62, 89 Regions, front and back, 92-97, 99-102,
Pennsylvania Dutch, 53 105-7, 179
People watching, 130, 131 Religion, 3, 10, 15, 18-20, 25-27, 35,43,
Phenomenology o f Mind, (Hegel), 18 47, 60, 73, 74, 85, 103, 119, 142,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 40, 52, 88, 177, 179; idols, 47; meaning of, 6, 74;
130, 138, 168; Betsy Ross’s House, primitive, 2; symbolism of, 2; theol
148; Independence Hall, 138, 157; ogy- 54
Liberty Bell, 14, 15, 138, 149; Main Religious attractions, 189n; Crown of
Line, 155; Society Hill, 52, 168 Thorns, 14; Jonah, 14; The Last
Philosophy, 18, 25, 34 Supper, 112-14, 116, 128; Noah’s
Phonograph records, 23, 29 Ark, 14. See also Churches
Photography, 45, 147, 157, 167 Replicas: of sacred objects, 124
Pilgrimages, 43 Re-presentation(s), 78-80, 84, 92, 110
Pilgrims, 142 Reproduction: mechanical, 45; social, 45
Pilgrim’s Progress, 5 Resorts, 9, 142, 153, 163, 164, 166, 169,
Planning, 162, 163, 168, 169, 178. See also 183-85
Marxism Rest (and Relaxation), 171. See also Viet
Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, 148 nam
Revolution, 3, 9, 12, 17, 21, 22, 36, 60, Self-consciousness, 16, 30, 53, 86, 87,
85-87, 130, 166, 200n; French Rev 163, 182, 187
olution, 190n; Great Proletarian Semiotics, 20, 109, 117, 180, 181. See also
Cultural Revolution (China), 148; Image; Language; Marker; Meaning;
student-worker revolution (France, Peirce; Re-presentation; De Saus-
1968), 199n sure; Signs; Symbols
Richards, Cora, E ., 177, 202n Seven Wonders of the World, 44, 153
Riesman, David, 102 Sex, 27, 32, 101, 142
Ritual: and ceremony, 43, 46, 52, 60, 72, Shetland Isles, 174-76
74, 95, 103; and degradation cere Sights, 14, 23, 41-44, 59-61, 109-15,
mony, 72; and rites, 43, 46, 148; 117, 119-33, 136-38, 142, 146^t9,
sightseeing as, 13, 26, 35, 42, 43, 154-59, 164, 170; obliteration of,
4 6 4 8 , 73, 137, 175, 192n, 195n 125-27
Rivière, G .-H ., 196n Sightseeing, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13-16, 39, 40,
Roebuck, J ., 177, 202n 42, 43, 48, 55, 57, 68, 80, 83, 103,
Rome, 59, 84, 87, 122; Colosseum, 87; 104, 110, 112, 113, 121, 127, 130,
Spanish Steps, 54, 130 135, 136, 138, 139, 146, 157, 186,
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 40 62 n
Rosetta Stone, 111 Sightseers, 6, 36, 50-52, 57, 62, 64, 82,
Rousseau, J .- J . , 190n, 201n 94, 96, 98-100, 110-13, 115-17,
Ruins: archaeological, 116; Greek, 29 121-25, 127, 130, 132, 135, 156-58,
Rural communities, 3, 49, 167, 174. See 168, 170
also Tourist attractions Signs, 26, 109, 110, 117, 118, 132, 147;
Russia, 22, 31, 172, 187. See also Soviet arbitrariness of, 117; interchange
Union ability of, 118; and signification, 20;
signifier-signified, 117-19
Simmel, Georg, 48, 49, 115, 193n
Sacred, 39, 45, 46 Sjoby, J ., 197n
Saint Louis (King of France), 45 Slater, Philip, 146
San Francisco, 43, 46, 50, 51, 59, 87, 88, Smithsonian Institution, 46
93, 106, 111, 112, 131, 168, 172; Social class, 3, 5, 7, 11, 25, 32, 35-37,41,
Barbary Coast, 50; cable car, 46, 88, 48, 62, 77, 106, 118, 145, 155, 163,
111; City Lights Bookstore, 111; 177, 181, 182, 184, 195n
Fisherman’s Wharf, 51, 111, 131, Social establishments, 51, 52, 56
168; Golden Gate Bridge, 54, 111, Social fact, 20, 41, 47, 51, 145
112, 156; Haight Ashbury, 41, 50, Social groups, 29, 32, 118, 147', 161, 181
102, 111, 130; Marineland, 149; Social intervention, 162, 169
North Beach, 93, 111, 130; Union Social movements, 8, 12, 15, 18, 22, 28,
Square, 54, 111 31, 35, 58, 69, 95, 100, 161, 162
Sapir, Edward, 35, 36, 192n Social organization, 3, 6, 31, 119, 176
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 17, 20 Social roles, 92
De Saussure, Ferdinand, 117 Social status, 6, 11, 35, 62, 64, 65, 71, 72,
The Savage Mind, 2, 4 147
Scenery, 58, 80, 81, 106, 126, 168, 169 Social structure, 39, 46, 47, 49, 50, 55,
Schweitzer, Albert, 34 56, 63, 64, 70, 81, 91-93, 105, 107,
Science, 18, 22, 29, 48, 57, 109, 118 119, 139, 143, 145, 151, 152, 155,
Science fiction, 15, 16 157, 158, 160, 163, 172-77, 181,
Seattle, Washington, 122, 157, 168, 170; 182, 184, 185, 191n, 192n
Space Needle, 157 Socialism, 85-87
Society: non-modem, 3, 8, 174; peasant, Theory o f the Leisure Class (Veblen), 10
21, 53, 168, 183; structural analysis Theses on Feuerbach (Marx), 18
of, 1, 2, 3, 43, 103, 131, 132.Seealso Third World, 3, 86, 162, 163, 170, 171
Primitives Thompson, B ., 198n
Solidarity, 13, 16, 32, 73, 76, 78, 81, 83, Thom e, Barrie, 190n
91, 94, 99, 107, 145, 155; male, 62; Tijuana, 46
organic, 180, 181 Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, 170
Sommer, Robert, 192n Tombs, 123, 124
Souvenirs, 3, 29,41,42, 53,76, 119, 124, Totemism, 125, 150. See also Charms
142, 147-50, 152, 157-60, 168, 170 Totem poles, 46, 111
Soviet Union, 6, 22, 85. See also Russia Tour guides, 128, 136, 138, 139, 177
Spain, 82, 96, 158 Tourism, 13-15, 81-83, 162-66, 179-87;
Spectacle, 6, 23, 24, 64, 65 politics of, 162, 164—68; statistics on,
Spectators, 24, 63. See also Audience 172, 173; in third world, 171, 172
Sports, 22, 27, 28, 31, 36, 80; games, 25, Tourist: as model for modem man, 1, 2,
32, 35, 176; sports cars, 21, 23, 182 43-45, 65-68, 130-32, 135, 138,
Spray, S. Lee, 177, 202n 176-78. See also Consciousness
Stanford, Leland, Jr., Museum, 197n Tourist attractions, 13-16, 41-48, 50, 56,
Statue of Liberty, 14, 15, 43, 117, 132, 151-53, 156-59; 9n, 62n; rural, 114;
149, 152 semioticof, 109-33. See also Religous
StoufTer, Samuel A., 196n attractions; and specific attractions
St. Petersburg, Florida, 131 by name
Strangers, 32, 93 Tourist world: end of, 183-87
Strauss, Anselm, 177, 202n Tours: guided, 6, 30, 36, 40, 43, 45,
Structure: genuine, 145, 152, 154-56, 50-52, 62, 89, 97, 98, 102, 156, 157,
166; spurious, 145, 147, 149, 163, 164, 168, 176; walking, 61
151-55, 157. See also Authenticity Tower of Babel, 14
Subject-object, 109, 117, 132, 133 Traditions, 82-84, 86, 87, 91, 178
Superhighways, 104-6, 114 Transcendence, 12, 13, 86, 163. See also
Superstars, 23, 28, 63, 64, 93 Consciousness; Mind
Switzerland, 97, 106, 150, 168, 170 Trash, 31, 40
Travelogues (guidebooks, posters, slide
Tangiers, 49, 104 shows, etc.), 41, 120, 124, 129-32,
Taxonomy: social classification, 2, 45, 142, 143, 158, 182. See also
46, 51 Guidebooks
Television, 22-24, 27, 29, 31, 93, 101, Truth and nontruth, 16, 42, 45, 91-96,
192n. See also Photography 100, 102, 103, 107, 137-40, 146,
Theory, 2, 10, 17, 70, 101, 161, 162, 147, 152, 155-57, 161, 164, 179,
179-83; concept, 118; Gem ein 199n
schaft-Gesellschaft, 49; knowledge, Tunisia, 142, 143
sociology of, 118; materialism, and Twain, Mark, 73, 103, 112-14, 121-23,
dialectical materialism, 18, 22, 85; 1 2 8 -3 0 ,189n,195n, 198n, 202n
metacriticism, 10; microstudies,
39n; natural standpoint, 4, 81; Uganda, 170
positivism, 84, 85; “science of the United States Capitol Building. See
concrete,” 57; structuralism, 2, 58; Washington, D.C.
symbolic interactionists, 181; sys United States of America, 17, 29, 31, 42,
temic variables, 11, 46; theory of the 59, 60, 80, 81, 87, 88, 96, 97, 105,
middle range, 3. See also Semiotics; 115, 126, 128, 131-33, 138, 142,
Society 148, 149, 150, 152, 157, 165, 166,
167, 172, 180, 182, 185, 187, 190n. Washington State, 36, 125
See also North America Weber, Max, 10, 33, 68, 192n, 194n
United States Travel Service, 131, 182 White, Leslie, 180, 203n
University, 32, 33 Whyte, William Foote, 177, 202n
University of California, 87, 97 Wild animals, 88, 170
Wilderness, 128
Vacation, 6, 7, 34 Wild West: as tourist attraction, 7, 141
Values, 2, 5, 6, 74 Windelband, Wilhelm, 190n
Veblen, Thorstein, 10, 11, 103, 177, Wittlin, Alma S ., 196n
198n, 202n Work, 5-7, 11, 18, 21, 34-37, 41, 49, 57,
Vehicles: as attractions, 55, 63, 70 58, 62, 63, 65H71, 73, 76, 85, 91,
Venice, 54, 133, 150 104, 119, 120, 194n; universal drama
Venus: statue of, 41 of, 63, 76
Venus de Milo, 43 Work display, 36, 57-59, 61-63, 65-67,
Vermont, 125, 126 70, 74, 76, 115, 120, 194n
Verne, Jules, 6 Work ethic, 7, 10
Vernon, M t., Virginia, 111 Work-Study programs, 7
Versailles, 45 Workers, 7, 19, 22, 28, 35-37, 59, 62-70,
Vienna, 120 72, 74,97,145; as tourists, 62,63. See
Vietnam, 86, 148, 171 also Class; Proletariat
Violence, 2, 1 1,31,71, 72. See also Crime World view, 2, 30, 31, 36
Visual arts, 21 World’s Fairs. See Expositions
Wright Brothers’ Workshop, Dayton,
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, 146 Ohio, 197n
Warfare, conventional, 8, 34,65, 85, 128;
guerrilla, 8 Yellowstone, National Park, 81, 115,
War games, 86 126, 150
Warhol, Andy, 31 Young, Arthur, 96; 96n
Washington, D. C ., 115, 123; United Young, Frank W ., 181, 182, 198n, 203n
States Capitol Building, 149; Young, Ruth, C ., 163, 203n
Washington Cathedral, 46; Wash
ington Monument, 45, 149; White Zappa, Frank, 31
House, 156, 157 Zoos, 53, 115
Washington, George, 110, 111 Zurich, 139